No summary available.
No summary available.
Extreme interest in MS of HF’s paper on the American fossil elephant [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 3 (1863): 43–114].
Pleased HF does not believe in immutable species. Significance of proboscidean group verging towards extinction. Comments on natural selection preserving type despite variability. Natural selection solves problem of how every part of each creature has become adapted.
Mentions a discussion of man by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in his Histoire naturelle générale [1854–62].
Mentions a book by Friedrich Rolle [Ch. Darwin’s Lehre von der Entstehung der Arten (1863)].
Cites evolutionary statements on elephants by Hugh Falconer and notes Falconer’s objection to natural selection.
Thanks for information. Asks for more information about labellum of orchids.
Hopes to visit CD with Mellersh and Wickham the week after next.
Inquires whether previous letter was received by CD.
Although their views differ, HF is glad they can discuss those differences without offending.
Explains that he returned the MS - part of a paper on fossil and living species of elephant (Falconer 1863) - to Falconer’s house in Park Crescent the previous Thursday.
Thinks Max Müller’s Lectures on the science of language [1861–4] will do a real service to CD and natural selection.
Thanks for opinion on Drosera. After working for a time on a subject he is absolutely incapable of judging its value.
Has found a case in Lythrum of a necessary triple alliance between three hermaphrodites; the strangest case of propagation recorded among plants or animals.
Asks for L. thymifolia to see how a trimorphic form passes or graduates into dimorphic.
Questions JDH on Linum perenne.
Has found 33 hybrids in one field between Verbascum thapsus and V. lychnitis. The perfect series of varieties would have justified running the species together, but every one of the intermediate forms is sterile.
Reports misprint in announcement of his book [Orchids].
Doubts he has a chance of being elected F.R.S. because he is 58.
Will send a skull.
Discusses length of pistils, and measuring seeds and pods for botanical work.
The BAAS meeting at Cambridge was exhausting.
Owen came to attack him but was beaten; his paper fell flat.
A "society for propagation of common honesty in all parts of the world" was established at Cambridge [THH’s "Thorough Club"?].
Thanks for a contribution ["On the so-called ""auditory-sac"" of cirripedes", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1863): 115–16; Collected papers 2: 85–7]. Is sending a proof.
This year’s lecture to working men to be devoted to CD’s book.
Sends comments on Lythrum.
Has sent two Impatiens flowers; curious to know what CD makes of the floral whorls and their vascular bundles.
Cassia is another genus that has different [coloured] anthers in same flower.
Continues to work on Welwitschia.
Feels as CD does about his work, which after a time seems flat and stale. He could never have done what CD did in his Orchids.
CD’s facts about Verbascum have horrible bearing on JDH’s practice of lumping species together.
TFJ returns CD’s "too flattering" letter concerning Glen Roy [see 3761]. Further discussion of [A. C.] Ramsay’s, [J. D.] Hooker’s, and CL’s arguments about the formation of glacial lakes.
Requests Linum, for dimorphism study.
Reviewer of Orchids [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6]is correct about the organisation of the book; he wonders who the reviewer is.
If Wickham remains in town and CD is well enough, BJS thinks they might come about the 22d.