Fox hopes to see CD in London in November.
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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.
Fox hopes to see CD in London in November.
Sorry to hear of CD’s poor health.
Is hard at work examining Ceratodus.
Encloses discussion of Mus species with functionally prehensile tails.
Encloses argument against freshwater fish entering the sea.
On Huxley’s article for Contemporary Review [see 7977] confuting Mivart. It has cheered him,
for he is very low about his mother’s state.
Is also in detestable position with "my lord and master", A. S. Ayrton. JDH has denounced him to the [First] Lord of the Treasury [W. E. Gladstone] for his conduct.
Sorry to hear of JDH’s troubles;
pleased he thinks so highly of Huxley’s article [see 7977].
Huxley makes CD feel infantile in intellect (as JDH once said of himself). CD is not so good a Christian as JDH thinks, for he did enjoy his revenge on Mivart.
Anecdote about a gathering of kangaroos.
Thanks for Chauncey Wright’s article. Admits it is clever, but hardly expected CD to think it a serious defence of his position.
Asks CD’s opinion of his suggestion that a distinctive mark of species may be the duration of pregnancy, incubation, or germination.
Sends some articles on mammals [possibly "On the relations of the orders of mammals", Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 19 (1870): 267–70, and "On the characteristics of the primary groups of the class of mammals", ibid. 20 (1871): 284–306].
He is a disciple, convinced of CD’s theory of evolution and of natural selection.
In the U. S. almost all refuse to recognize natural selection.
Publisher would like to produce a translation of Expression. JVC offers to translate it.
Sends passage from Albertus Magnus on colour of horses.
Offers explanation of white colour of sea-birds.
Schweizerbart is now reprinting Descent, nearly all the first 3000 copies having been sold;
new editions of Origin
and of Variation are also planned.
Possibility of a new German translation of Journal of researches.
"I should expect that the period of gestation will differ very little in the individuals of the same species, as long as its conditions of life remained the same. But I doubt whether it is sure as an absolute criteria; for although little or nothing on this field can be known with respect to species in a state of nature, yet with races of the same species as with dogs and cattle, the period is known slightly to differ. In the generation of seeds from the same capsule there is often the most wonderful and inexplicable difference in the periods".
Will give printer orders to set up first six chapters of Origin [6th ed.]. Murray thinks a glossary [of scientific terms] might be advisable, if not longer than ten pages. Will offer W. S. Dallas £10 for it.
Is preparing a work on fertilisation of flowers, and wants to add a list of works containing observations on cross-fertilisation of plants. Asks CD for any references he may have.
Is preparing paper on breeding ["Breeding facts and principles", J. Farmers’ Club (1871): 45–53]. Seeks CD’s advice and assistance. Believes male parent influences external appearance and female the internal organisation.
Answers CD on transitional forms. Has no doubt Zeuglodon is transitional form between Carnivora and Cetacea.
Met Mivart in Manchester. Some doubt that he was the author of Quarterly Review article.
Encloses notes [missing] that he has made for CD on looking through his dried skins of American Anatidae.
Thanks CD for copies of the pamphlet [Darwinism (1871)].
His memoir on phyllotaxy [Mem. Am. Acad. Arts & Sci. n.s. 9 (1867–73): 379–415] will soon be printed.
Has met CD’s sons.
Has seen CD’s sons.
On structure and function of the cetacean larynx.
CD has omitted in all his works one of the most interesting causes of variation, domestic or wild – i.e., frightening of a pregnant animal; quotes case of eight-footed horse from a French translation of G. S. W. von Adler.
First six chapters [of Origin, 6th ed.] sent to printer.