No summary available.

Thanks for information about the dotterel.

CD had ascertained by dissection that the female of the carrion-hawk of the Falkland Islands is very much brighter coloured than the male. Has inquired about its nidification. Mentions other instances of female birds that are brighter and more beautiful than the males and suggests causes for this anomaly.

Much obliged for lecture [On some defects in public school education (1867)]. Would leave classics to those with zeal and taste for appreciation. Learned nothing at school except by reading and experimenting in chemistry.

Asks whether WBT can carry out poultry mating experiments for him.

Wishes to know the correct name for the British Museum’s specimen of an Abyssinian wolf described by Wilhelm Rueppell, Neue Wirbelthiere zu der Fauna von Abyssinien [1835–40] .

No summary available.

Grateful for addresses of informants, especially that of Rajah James Brooke.

Dispatch of queries on expression. Answers will make interesting appendix to his "Essay on man" [Descent].

Protective adaptation of female butterflies believed probable.

Believes in sexual selection as applied to man.

Asks to be kept informed on gaudy caterpillars.

Problems of his work on man; scope and role of sexual selection.

Indulgence of interest in expression is simply a "hobby-horse". Will see whether he can get queries inserted in an Indian newspaper.

Thanks for note and returns signed paper. Asks that the payment be made to his bank account.

The date-palm seed case is important for Pangenesis.

Reports experiments on pollination of Ipomoea.

"Insular floras": A. Murray’s paper in Gardeners’ Chronicle is poor.

John Scott’s work on acclimatisation of plants.

The anomaly of the Azores flora on the migration theory.

The compositors have invented a title [for Variation] which CD thinks is better than the advertised one. CD can form no opinion on number of copies. Asks that clean sheets be sent to German and Russian publishers for translation.

Offers the German rights of Variation if J. V. Carus is prepared to translate it.

Thanks for two copies of Hildebrand’s monograph on plant sexuality (Hildebrand 1867a).

The new title is fixed. Thanks for clean sheets. As to number of copies, now that JM proposes 1500, CD is frightened.

Suggests change in sentence of JDH’s "Insular floras" to make meaning clear.

Naudin’s letter about hybrids.

Pangenesis.

CD must decline his correspondent’s kind offer [unspecified], but he is out of health and has passed the part about dogs in a work now at the printer’s [Variation].

Thanks for Agassiz’s Lectures. Lyell does not believe a word about glacial action of any kind in lowlands of Brazil. Agassiz’s view of glacial movement has been given up by physicists.

Returns Charles Naudin’s letter with its case in support of CD’s view of impregnation.

Twits JDH for trying to wriggle out of error made in his lecture and admires his "candour in letting the rat out of the bag". [See 5449 and 5451.]

Thanks for facts on orchids.

Friedrich Hildebrand’s new book on fertilisation of plants [Die Geschlechten-Vertheilung bei den Pflanzen (1867)].

CD correcting proofs of Variation.

FM likes Ernst Haeckel’s book [Generelle Morphologie (1866)].

Answers VOK’s questions regarding the size of forthcoming Variation and gives his consent to a translation.

But if Origin has not yet been translated into Russian, CD thinks it would be a better book to undertake.