At Asa Gray’s request, responds to CD’s questions about WMC’s observations on Dionaea and particularly about the size of the insects captured and the excitability of the leaves after an insect is captured.
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The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
At Asa Gray’s request, responds to CD’s questions about WMC’s observations on Dionaea and particularly about the size of the insects captured and the excitability of the leaves after an insect is captured.
He does not accept Wallace’s definition of instinct because it excludes "inherited experience", i.e., "knowledge acquired by and transmitted through ancestors".
House-flies do not seem to have an instinctive fear of trap-door spiders.
Miss Forster gives him news of CD.
A letter of recommendation for W. B. Dawkins in his application for the Woodwardian professorship of geology in the university of Cambridge.
Cannot find a publisher for Italian translation of Expression. Gives up the project.
Would like a museum set up illustrating origins, varieties, and uses of domestic animals; seeks CD’s approval of the idea.
Forwards Matthew Arnold’s Literature and dogma [1873].
Hopes they can secure Hooker for President of Royal Society.
Thanks MA for his Literature and dogma [1873].
Encloses cheque for 1000 guineas, CD’s share of profits on first 7000 copies of Expression.
Is drawing up the account of his crossing experiments. Requests JDH to add the families after nine genera, the names of which he encloses. Whenever there is no objection he would like to arrange the families in some sort of natural order.
Recommends Spalding’s article on instinct in Macmillan’s Magazine [27 (1873): 265–81].
Sends copy of Vinzenz Czerny [Beziehungen der Chirurgie (1872)], which applies Darwinian principles to pathology.
Recommends illustrations dealing with expression in the Atlas of K. H. Baumgärtner’s Kranken-Physiognomik [1839].
Thanks for information on worm-castings. Comments on disintegration of castings.
The editor of a supplement to the New Free Press to be published during the next Vienna Exhibition, asks CD to contribute a few columns on any topic.
Reports that he has the power of moving his left ear towards the top of his head [see Descent 1: 21].
Delighted with John Traherne Moggridge’s book [Harvesting ants (1873)].
Has suggested he plant seeds in various receptacles. Only two explanations for failure of seeds to germinate [in ants’ nests]: lack of circulating air or formic acid.
Has undertaken a botany primer for Macmillan.
Will see whether formic acid delays germination of fresh seeds.
Thinks primer not at all a folly. Refers JDH to Asa Gray’s "child’s book" [see 8363].
Comments on CD’s and William Huggins’ letter in Nature on "Inherited instinct" [Collected papers 2: 170–1]
and on A. R. Wallace’s letter on the homing faculty of animals. Believes many instances of homing are less remarkable than they appear.
CD is asked to increase his shares in the Artizans, Labourers, & General Dwellings Co. Ltd., which has trebled its capital in the last year and is paying a 6% dividend.
Sends pamphlet on punishment in education [Punishments in education, read at Social Science Congress, 1872] in response to Expression. Proposes that character can be diagnosed from expression.
Thanks CD for comments on Die Kalkschwämme.
Plans trip to Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt.
Discusses work of a Polish translator, Ludwik Masłowski.
Asks for references to works on CD’s views for a paper he is preparing.