Sends his article ["Quelques nouvelles espèces de poissons fossiles", Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, Haarlem 2d ser. 14 (1861)]

and Dutch translation of the Origin.

Distribution of varieties and subspecies.

George Maw’s review of the Origin [Zoologist 19 (1861): 7577–611].

Evidence of glacial action in Australia. [See Origin, 4th ed., p. 443.]

CD awarded honorary doctorate of medicine and surgery by the University of Breslau. [See 3194a.]

Thanks CD for his letter about GM’s review of the Origin.

Sends instances of correlative organisation and functions which he finds difficult to believe could have accumulated by gradual modifications.

[Letter erroneously dated 1862 by GM.]

Mention of Volucella.

The embryology of the vertebrate nervous system may be an exception to the law of inheritance at corresponding ages.

Gives some observations on the sensitivity of Drosera species and comments on cases of "dioecio-dimorphism".

Observations from a fortnight in Lochaber. Found the entrance to Loch Treig to present the clearest evidence of intense glacial action. States, in contradiction of David Milne-Home, that there is glacial scoring in Glen Spean, as Louis Agassiz described, and moraine around the mouth of Loch Treig. There is little sign of water erosion on the rocks crossed by the lines in Glen Roy. Believes the smoothed rocks at the eastern end of Loch Laggan are due to flow from the lake and not tidal action. The lines in Glen Roy are too neat for a lake shore subject to tides. Given the glacial scoring sweeping round from Glen Spean into Glen Treig, and all the boulders, TFJ is astonished that anyone could deny that there had been glaciers there. [See 3247.]

The Primula experiments of J. Sidebotham; HCW’s distrust of the results [see J. Sidebotham, "Specific identity of the cowslip and the primrose", Phytologist 3 (1849): 703–5].

Offers to publish Orchids, giving CD one-half of the profits of each edition.

Has found the reference to Charles Morren’s paper, "On the agency of insects in causing sterility in flowers" [Proc. R. Entomol. Soc. Lond. 1 (1836): xliv–xlv].

Common white butterflies remove pollen-masses with their tarsi from plants of the Asclepiadaceae.

List of Australian plants that have become naturalised in the Nilgiris [India] and are turning out the native trees.

Asks for copy of CD’s paper ["Ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshire", Collected papers 1: 163–71]. Gathers that drift of Moel Tryfan is glacial.

Believes Glen Roy roads formed later than submergence of Scotland.

Asks CD’s opinion concerning relative chronology of various glacial deposits, particularly a flint tool find in the Ouse River near Bedford.

Discusses the mimicry of the Volucella flies, and the bees and wasps they mimic. Compares it with the different object of mimicry in butterflies.

Refers to incompleteness of Cuthbert Collingwood’s paper [? "On homophormism, or organic representative forms", Proc. Liverpool Lit. & Philos. Soc. 14 (1860): 181–216].

Thanks CD for help in selecting a publisher for his book [The naturalist on the river Amazons (1863)].

Finds no trace of nectar in Stanhopea saccata.

Fancies articles on "The queen bee" and "Drone influence" [J. Hortic. 8 October 1861, p. 39] may be of interest. Since writing the latter, one of his drones hybridised a queen at a distance of a mile and a half.

Notes several cases of "dioecio-dimorphism" in different genera; feels the discovery of pollen that will act only on the pistil of another flower is most important. Believes CD should next turn his attention to investigating cases of "precocious fertilisation".

Replies to CD’s query (see 3778): the queens or females of the humble bees are not fertilised in the air. Offers a number of observations relating to the fertilisation of bees and wasps, which he has made in the course of sixty years.

Ice could not have formed the blockages in Lochaber unless in every case the water escaped over some col into a contiguous valley on the same watershed, or into the eastern watershed. Supposes that the cols were not land-straits, but the places where the lakes were drained when forced to flow the wrong way.