Sends to Pantlludw [North Wales] bottle of formic acid. FD and Amy [Darwin] can search for spawn. If found, keep in two basins and add 6 drops of acid to one and look for differences.
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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.
Sends to Pantlludw [North Wales] bottle of formic acid. FD and Amy [Darwin] can search for spawn. If found, keep in two basins and add 6 drops of acid to one and look for differences.
"Try only 1 or 2 drops of Formic A[cid]."
Fears all the seeds are dead. Will try with less vapour of formic acid.
Observations on bees’ biting holes in Lathyrus.
Suggests an experiment FD could carry out with Drosera.
CD is working on Mimosa, and "everything has turned out as perversely as possible".
Pollination and floral structure of Lathyrus. Asks where bees bite through the flowers.
Asks FD to bring any book that gives the affinities of the various earths, alkalis and metals.
Asks for details about microscope parts.
Wants FD to ask Hooker for species of Desmodium; CD believes he has found new movements.
Also ask whether Hooker has Drosophyllum.
Lists observations he would like FD to make on the dried species of Desmodium at Kew.
Wants FD to look at the little lateral leaflets of Desmodium. CD has "a wild hypothesis that the little leaflets may be tendrils reconverted into leaflets".
Asks FD to come early to write from dictation.
Thanks Amy for her drawing of Utricularia montana.
Asks FD to make out [Hermann] Hoffmann’s conclusions about the fertilisation of Phaseolus multiflorus [in Untersuchungen zur Bestimmung des Werthes von Species und Varietät (1869)].
Begs FD’s pardon: his notes on Utricularia amethystina are on same page with those on U. nelumbifolia.
Has been examining Utricularia minor. Same essential structure but catches smaller Entomostraca. One bladder had 24, another 20, and another 15 Entomostraca. "What slaughter! We must make out the functions of the beast––".
Sends a chapter [of Insectivorous plants]. Never was there anything so dull, but later chapters will be better. Please correct an error on p. 86.
Sends proofs of Variation [2d ed.] for FD to look over.
CD has just had an interview with Edward Frankland, who "almost laughs" at FD’s idea of getting potash and soda out of the soil by treating it with sulphuric acid. Asks FD to send him a soil sample to give to Frankland. Sends enclosures giving address and labels for soil samples.
Expresses his pride in FD, whose article ["On the structure of the snail’s heart", J. Anat. Physiol. 10 (1876): 506–10] was highly praised by G. H. Lewes.
Lewes has also been quoting FD’s letter in Nature [13 (1876): 384–5] on pycrotoxine in relation to the vivisection controversy.
Was introduced to James Sully, author of the article in Mind on Wilhelm Wundt ["Physiological psychology in Germany", 1 (1876): 20–43]
and Sensation and intuition (1874) [see 10320], by "Mrs Lewes" (George Eliot).
Discusses FD’s observations on the protrusion of protoplasmic masses by cells of the teasel. Suggests analogy with amoeba. "I would work at this subject if I were you, to the point of death."
Comments on FD’s discovery – "if it so proves". It will be important to see whether the protoplasm oozes through the cell-walls [of Dipsacus] or whether it can be withdrawn.
Looks to FD’s "grand discovery" as almost certain. Suggests observations.