J. D. Hooker’s health is improving;
he has been offered the Directorship at Kew.
Thanks CD for paper ["Climbing plants"].
Reports case of variation becoming at once hereditary – a crested blackbird with crested young.
Discusses the climbing movements of plants and describes experiment to establish a mechanical explanation for double spiralling movements of tendrils.
J. D. Hooker is recovering from his ill health.
On his reading: George Eliot,
T. F. Jamieson on Scottish glaciation.
Glad Lyell–Lubbock affair is over.
His grief over loss of father and child.
Expects to publish an account of his journeys soon.
Asks CD’s support for his Royal Society candidacy.
Goldfields he discovered are now being worked.
His second son [C. W. Fox] has a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford.
[Isolated fragments only.]
Autobiographical letter describing how, when he could not conscientiously take orders, he went to New Zealand and has now returned to England to study art.
Fascinated and delighted by Origin
and is pleased that his pamphlet [Evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ] pleases CD.
Has returned from holiday. Family news.
Concern over Hooker’s health.
Information concerning improvements in the Reader under new sponsorship.
Current reading and work [on pigeons for Ibis 1 (1865): 365–400, and catalogue of his collection of birds].
Book of travels postponed indefinitely.
Admiral FitzRoy’s daughters by his first marriage have been left without means. The largest subscription to the fund has been £100.
On novels he has been reading: Eliot, Richardson, etc.
On Wallace, the Reader, and anthropology.
Thanks CD for his photograph.
Sends a paper ["Über das Holz einiger um Desterro wachsender Kletterpflanzen", Botanische Zeitung 24 (1866): 57–60, 65–9].
Believes species of sponge with different mineral spiculae are descended from a form with organic spiculae.
Reports observations on motions of Linum stalks following the sun.
Regards Anelasma as a connecting form between cirripedes and Rhizocephala.
Thanks for "Climbing plants".
Requests CD copy out a passage of Origin and autograph it for publication.
How did CD handle his sons’ expenses at Cambridge?
Returns a paper which he has looked over.
Cannot name the scrap of Strychnos with any certainty.
Thanks for autograph [Autographic Mirror 3 (1865) no. 262] and corrections of HK’s biographical sketch of CD [Autographic Mirror 3 (1865): 82–3].
Asks CD to support his candidacy for Professorship of Zoology at Cambridge. Since he has spent many years travelling, he is not well enough known at the University.
CD need not apologise for not writing a testimonial for him. He knows comparative anatomy, although he has confined his publication to ornithology. Agrees that with a few members of the University a recommendation from CD would be harmful.