Thanks JC for pamphlets.
"I do not believe in Metempsychosis nor in Genesis – & you are growing so orthodox, that you will end your days, I believe, in believing in the Tower of Babel–."
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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.
Thanks JC for pamphlets.
"I do not believe in Metempsychosis nor in Genesis – & you are growing so orthodox, that you will end your days, I believe, in believing in the Tower of Babel–."
Thanks for information about natural increase of Chillingham cattle. Compares with case in Paraguay.
Discusses dimorphism and suggests CD investigate Valeriana.
Praises CD’s views with respect to the U. S. Civil War and relations with England. Worsening relations between Britain and U. S.
Wrote a "frightful screed" about aristocracy’s being a necessary consequence of natural selection, and then burnt it.
H. W. Bates is the only man "thinking out" natural selection to any purpose. "I think I have driven Bates back to Nat. Sel. as the only way of solving his difficulties."
HWB’s mimetic butterflies.
JDH wishes he had time to do the same thing with plants.
Owen and Huxley involved in a "contemptible" squabble in the Edinburgh newspapers.
Maximovitch reports Stellaria bulbifera is a Siberian form which never ripens its seeds.
E. A. Parkes informs him there will be difficulty about the Army returns [on CD’s Query to Army surgeons, see Freeman, Works of Charles Darwin, p. 111] owing to official obstructions by Director General. [Enclosed letter from Parkes to GB says that the Director General does not think that Army surgeons could be asked to collect information systematically for CD, but perhaps some informal, voluntary arrangement could be made.]
Encloses a passage from his book, The botany of the voyage of H.M.S. "Herald" [1852–7].
Discusses possibility of publishing work on flora of Hawaiian Islands.
Discusses insects of south temperate S. America and New Zealand, especially with respect to the distribution and origin of Chilean Carabi, and has sent for a German monograph to learn about the eleven species he has found.
He refers to Chilean poverty in butterflies; scanty New Zealand insect fauna.
An analysis of south temperate insects is desirable, but the small English collections make him afraid to undertake it.
Sends CD a quotation from Plato which anticipates the Origin.
Has been enjoying CD’s paper on dimorphism in the Journal of the Linnean Society ["Two forms of Primula", Collected papers 2: 45–63]. He has found similar structures [see Forms of flowers, pp. 116, 122].
Comments on presentation copy of Orchids. Has CD studied the orchid Sobralia?
Cannot get material for hollyhock experiment.
Sends his notes on Primula sinensis.
He is experimenting on Ranunculus.
L. C. Treviranus inclined to translate Orchids, but "unfortunately" HGB has already done it. Book’s discussion of plant sexuality important for zoology as well as botany.
Origin is in press. Attaches a list of "quelques petites difficultées" encountered in his translation.
Observations on Platanthera.
Possibility of trimorphism in Mertensia.
Wife’s health improved by trip.
Heer’s collections convince JDH that Miocene vegetation was Himalayan, not American, as Heer supposed.
Zurich promises to be a good natural history school.
Review of Natural History Review in Parthenon [1 (1862): 373–5].
Suggests CD try to get Lythrum hyssopifolia from France.
Dimorphic flowers.
Differences between newly opened and older orchids.
Flowers of Spiranthes and Goodyera.
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.
Praises JS’s experimenting.
Has he ever studied the relative fertility of varieties? CD very interested in this subject.
Discusses Acropera.
Wants to quote JS on Zea [Variation 1: 321].
CD sends his Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63].
EB has had his pension disallowed; is coming to England.
Encloses maize seeds.
Has heard of a butterfly with pollinia of Platanthera stuck to it.
Comments on AG’s notes ["Dimorphism in the genitalia of flowers", Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 34 (1862): 149–50].
"Precocious fertilisation".
Studying self-sterility, particularly in Oncidium, where abortion occurs consistently but stigma functions normally. His hybrid orchid crosses show sterility occurs capriciously. Thus it is not a "special endowment".
Disputes Asa Gray’s and Hermann Crüger’s view of rostellar germination.
Doubts absolute sterility of Catasetum.
Disappointed by results with homomorphic cowslips.
Observations on Catasetum.
Figs require insects in order to set seed.
Observes Plantago’s out-crossing mechanism.
Observations of style lengths of primroses and cowslips.