The buck is well; Dr Carter has returned, and things will go better.
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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.
The buck is well; Dr Carter has returned, and things will go better.
Acknowledges a box of worm-casts from India and a bottle of worms in spirits. There is no memorandum.
His book on expression is finished and includes valuable information from JS.
Hostility of birds toward others with same colour;
nuptial plumage.
Spiza cyanea and Spiza ciris.
Parallel quotations from Benjamin Franklin and Descent about absorption of heat by different colours; applies to winter and summer plumage of birds.
Reasoning power in dogs.
Cost of plates [for Expression] is greater than expected: £75 per 1000 copies.
VOK is marking the passages [in Wundt, Menschen und Thierseele (1863)] that may interest CD.
Offers observations on expression in Australian dogs, since he knows CD plans to publish on the subject.
Can believe animals communicate together, but does not know how.
Sends a paper in which he has applied CD’s theory of natural selection to the explanation of the mortality rate of new-born infants ["Die Kindersterblickeit", J. Kinderkrankheiten (1872)].
Wishes to have Dutch publication rights for a translation of Expression.
Has reported on the Naples Zoological Station to BAAS meeting at Brighton. Hopes to open it in January. Is at work building up the library by contributions from publishers and naturalists.
Deplores Wallace’s "drifting away" and his association with such men as H. C. Bastian.
Disbelieves in ascidians as our ancestors. Has a substitute he is sure will please CD.
Doubts reported cases of homing instinct in dogs.
Thanks for valuable information [about worms?]. "The more I investigate the extreme amount of work effected, the more perplexed as yet I become."
Rejoices at success [of Naples Zoological Station]. Will send complete set of his books to the library.
If AD is interested, he will send a copy of Expression when it comes out.
Invites AD to visit Down.
CD’s son Leonard of the Royal Engineers has applied to Sir George Biddell Airy to be an observer on the Venus Expedition. Leonard failed to mention his qualifications, which CD now relates with the request that HA draw them to his father’s attention.
Detailed response to reading of Bastian’s Beginnings of life [1872]. On the whole, it seems probable to CD that spontaneous generation is true.
Will call on CD next year, when he will have worked out the embryology of Amphioxus; he believes it is not primitive but a degenerate form of fish. He believes the true ancestors of vertebrates are annelids.
Has entered a newspaper controversy with W. P. Lyon [Homo versus Darwin (1872)] who ascribes to CD the saying "natural selection is a kind of god that never slumbers nor sleeps". FWH does not believe CD made this statement.
Explains that William Penman Lyon has misquoted CD in Lyon [1871].
Is now at work on Drosera and asks to borrow D. capensis and other species.