Sends his screed about the brain [for Descent], which he thinks pounds the enemy into a jelly.
Is in good health.
No summary available.
Sends some phosphates of lime free of animal matter [see Insectivorous plants, p. 109].
Thanks for the seeds and plants that he requested.
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.
CD’s son Francis is to be married, so CD is seeking advice as to how much he should arrange as a marriage-settlement.
His note on the brain should be in small type.
Glad CD agrees with him on hand, foot, and skull question.
Has heard from Dohrn.
Thanks for the pure phosphate of lime.
Sends queries [on proofs of Descent, 2d ed.]. Will be finished, except for the index, in two days.
Is now less satisfied than formerly with his statistics on cousin marriage.
[Enclosure is a copy by GHD of J. S. Mill’s statement about Origin (Logic 2: 18 n.).]
No summary available.
No summary available.
CD has observed hundreds of primrose flowers cut off their stalks, and conjectures that this was done by birds to obtain the nectar. Asks readers of Nature in England and abroad whether primroses are subject to such destruction in their localities.
Discusses LR’s communication concerning supernumerary mammae.
No summary available.
Is sorry to hear the news about the cousin question – a real misfortune.
Congratulates GHD on being nearly finished with work on Descent.
F. M. Balfour is in Naples. Comments on rate at which sea eats back the land, as given in early editions of Origin.
Sends Descent material. Is staggered by CD’s power of marshalling facts and his conciseness and clearness of thought. The only fault he finds is some slight want of conciseness of diction.
He feels CD’s power more now "that I quail before the thought of arranging the few paltry facts I’ve got about those d––d cousins".
The memorial failed last autumn. She asks for CD’s signature again so that it may be presented now that there is a new Government.
Her [Wedgwood] Handbook is now in press.
FM gives his own observations of leaf-cutting ants, which support those of Thomas Belt in his book [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1873)]. [See 9223.] These ants feed only upon the fungus that grows upon the leaves that they carry to their nests.
He has caught a moth of the Glaucopidæ that when touched emitted a cloud of snow-white wool.
Observations on the stingless bees of Brazil.
No summary available.