Thanks CD for Origin, 6th ed.
Has declined chair at Strasbourg.
Describes research on calcareous sponges.
Criticises Pangenesis.
Thanks CD for Origin, 6th ed.
Has declined chair at Strasbourg.
Describes research on calcareous sponges.
Criticises Pangenesis.
Sends information on composition of chalk at Shoreham and Folkestone.
Response to 6th ed. of Origin. CD’s answer to Mivart on initial stages of modifications is complete; the "eye and ear objection" is not handled so satisfactorily.
Thanks for facts about ducks.
Thinks TCE will be converted to principle of evolution if he continues testing facts for and against it. Natural selection is another question.
Thanks for new [6th] edition of Origin.
Is working on Echini.
The more material he gets the less easy it is to diagnose a genus or species. Has little doubt that "classification is nothing but the most arbitrary convenient tool, depending upon the material at our command at a special time".
A. S. Packard would like to visit CD to pay his respects.
Down parish and family matters.
JM arranges to pay CD for the latest issue of Descent.
Wishes to use some of Fritz Müller’s observations in his paper on mimicry.
CD’s reply and Huxley’s article ["Mr Darwin’s critics", Contemp. Rev. 18 (1871): 443–76] have answered all of Mivart’s objections to natural selection as applied to man.
Has just finished his work [? The martyrdom of man (1872)]. The new points are: (1) Negroes have whiskers; (2) their music is sometimes agreeable; (3) the Kaffirs are Negroes.
Offers to send German editions of his works when he return home.
Plans for visit to CD.
Has failed to discover the signs of earthworm activity that CD described.
Acknowledges payment from sale of his books.
On how various human emigrations have supported the work of natural selection.
Defends the view that soil and air account for taller stature of westerners in U. S.
CD insists too strongly, in Descent, on man’s origin from a simian ancestor, rather than some other primate.
Will see CD tomorrow.
Has received GCW’s negative from the Heliotype Co. Thanks him for the beautiful work of art which, however, will make others on the same plate look ugly. [See Expression, pl. III, fig. 2.]
Describes habits of worms.
Discusses Leersia experiments.
CD has lost his reference to cross between gold and silver pheasants.