Thanks for birthday greetings.

Comments on work at Naples Zoological Station. F. M. Balfour to visit Naples. Would like to send third son [Francis Darwin] to learn art of observing marine animals.

Health indifferent.

CD is grieved to hear that AD is overworked and troubled about the Zoological Station. Glad he is now writing to seek assistance from English naturalists. Sends a subscription of £100 and £10 each from George and Francis Darwin.

His gratitude for CD’s gift. An account of his difficulties with the Zoological Station and his health.

F. M. Balfour has told him that CD would like to see the question of complemental males in cirripedes studied again. AD would like to enter the field and to study the whole morphological development of cirripedes.

Describes the interest in embryological work in Russia and Germany.

Has written to J. Murray to have account of the Zoological Station inserted in the Murray guidebook.

The circular about the Station has been printed; some have already signed.

Received R. Kossman’s paper on Anelasma ["Untersuchungen über die durch Parasitismus hervorgerufenen Umbildungen in der Familie der Pedunculata", Verh. Phys.-med. Ges. Würz. N. F. 5 (1874): 129–57]. The case is the most interesting ever recorded of gradation, i.e., from an animal with a stomach to one with roots like a plant.

Delighted he will examine the complemental males of Scalpellum.

Thanks to CD’s help Zoological Station has passed a crisis and is now flourishing.

Is writing pamphlet on "the origin of vertebrates and the principle of succession of functions" [see 9991 and 10003]. It is likely CD will not be pleased with it, but he thinks he must now, after seven years, bring it out. Seeks to open the way for a new series of theoretical questions.

The Zoological Station has already resulted in "capital work" by F. M. Balfour and Ray Lankester. G. J. Romanes is coming next year.

CD will be interested in AD’s ancestry of vertebrates. "I shall be very sorry to give up the ascidians."

Thanks AD for his Ursprung [der Wirbelthiere (1875)], which astonished CD. AD’s views, if accepted by competent authorities, will show how much we have to learn about the history of every animal. Suggests caution on "degradation principle". Comments on other views in the work. Has long seen importance of the principle of "Functionswechsel" [transfer [change!?] of function], but never enunciated it as a distinct principle.

AD is aware of revolutionary character of his pamphlet [Ursprung der Wirbelthiere]. Authorities will not agree with him. Carl Gegenbaur and Ernst Haeckel are opposed. Younger biologists are disposed to accept his views. All he can expect is to put a stop to "the Amphioxus–Ascidian affair, and to open a road for speculation and for investigation on the side of the Annelid-homology".

Regrets he is too busy to accept CD’s invitation to visit Down, but could only thank him again for saving the Zoological Station from shipwreck.

Thanks AD for the handsome Annual Report of the Zoological Station (1878). Rejoices at its success and its great service to science.

Sends birthday greetings

and the good news of a subvention for the Zoological Station received from the German government. There are now 20 naturalists working at the Station.

Thanks AD and the naturalists at the Station for their birthday congratulations.

CD has been awarded the Bressa prize of the Accademia delle Scienze in Turin, and it occurs to him that if the Station wanted some apparatus costing about £100, he would like to pay for it.

Thanks CD for his offer. Suggests it be used to start a fund to pay travel expenses of English naturalists who want to come to the Station.

Leaves decision as to use of his gift to AD.

Thanks CD for his cheque for £100. Has told Secretary of BAAS Committee [for the Station], so that he may report it. [See O. J. R. Howarth, The British Association (1931), pp. 196–7.]

Belated birthday greetings

and reminiscences of CD’s help to the Station, which continues to prosper. A recent innovation is the establishment of the Zoologische Jahresbericht edited by J. V. Carus.

AD exaggerates what CD has done for science.

On the Zoological Yearbook, CD thinks it would be an excellent plan to give an account of zoological publications from all countries in a single work.

Birthday congratulations from the Naples Zoological Station. A new physiological department will be constructed. Describes work in progress at the Station.

Sends his paper on teleosteans.

Heard R. Owen read a paper at York [meeting of BAAS]. Owen had views similar to AD’s, but seemed not to be aware of work of others.

Thanks for AD’s letter.

Owen has published a paper on the brain in relation to the mouth ["On the homology of the conario-hypophysial tract", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 16 (1881–2): 131–49]. CD cannot avoid suspicion that the original idea was borrowed from AD.

F. M. Balfour very ill. His death would be a great loss.