Instinctive responses in animals.
Showing 1–20 of 37 items
Instinctive responses in animals.
Praise for and detailed comments on Expression.
Two cases of coloration in animals – one from sexual selection, the other helping to procure prey [see Descent, 2d ed., pp. 542–3].
Has sent Vichy water, discusses prescription. Tell Arthur Parslow not to continue on colchicum for gout if doesn’t suit him. May go to Pryor’s on Sunday.
Thanks for Expression. Will write paper on it in next [July] West Riding Asylum Medical Report.
Sends photos of lunatics;
will send notes corroborative of CD’s views, including some on "hereditarily transmitted movements".
Although he believes in evolution, TM feels that natural selection is an inadequate cause;
nor is he satisfied with E. D. Cope’s law of acceleration and retardation.
Discusses some of his work relating to nutrition and sex and colour and sex.
Recounts the difficulties in preparing the French translation of Origin: the 1870 war, the illness and death of J. J. Moulinié, the alterations and additions from the 6th English edition. Despite competition from Royer’s three editions, Reinwald is contemplating a new edition.
Descent, vol. 1, has almost sold out. Offers CD £40 for rights to reprint a corrected version of Descent.
Pleased that JC-B will review Expression.
Fears he will not be able to improve the book with JC-B’s "wonderfully curious" photographs because Murray printed such a large edition.
Would be glad to have JC-B’s notes on inheritance – "a most important subject".
Distressed by the poor health of GHD and Horace. Asks them to come home.
Asks CD about the origin of certain expressions in man.
Opposes all corporal punishment. Pleased CD agrees with his pamphlet.
Insists that suckling babies pound and scratch mothers’ breasts. Perhaps CD’s evidence to the contrary comes from ladies, who only expose small portion of bosom, as opposed to working-class women.
Various observations on sexual selection portion of Descent – ostriches, rosy-billed duck, egrets, rails, etc.
Thanks CD for one of his books.
Much obliged for seeds. Will expose seeds to chemical vapours.
Comments on JTM’s spider experiments.
Thanks them for their kind letter and interest in his work. Sends photograph.
Sends CD a copy of his book [Die Urgeschichte der Menschheit, 2 vols. (1873)].
In Germany CD’s views have achieved great recognition among naturalists, but in other disciplines there is great controversy. OC’s book seeks to resolve the controversy by showing how state, morals, religion, and church have developed from natural beginnings.
A circular advertising a meeting at the Senate House, Cambridge, on 25 March to discuss a memorial to Professor Adam Sedgwick.
Is glad and proud to honour the memory of Adam Sedgwick [d. 1873].
Thanks for CD’s regrets at AWB’s leaving Nature.
Plans English editions of Asa Gray’s books [How plants grow; How plants behave].
Other publication plans.
Thanks for congratulations on appearance of abstract of HA’s paper [Nature 7 (1873): 343–4].
Explains again his theory of "contraction with twist" by which compact buds and a spiral phyllotaxy have evolved. Explains how the peculiar phyllotaxy of the teasel is explicable by this process of "condensation".