CD has suggested an explanation of how pike were introduced to a remote lake in Ireland by cormorants [carrying pike spawn on their feet or in their gullets].
No summary available.
Reports status of Crimean medal and Cape medal [Kaffir medal?]. Benjamin Wyon expects to have models ready soon. [Addressed to 'My Lord'.]
Extraordinary demand for gold and silver coin in 1852-54 has subsided. Reports disposition of twelve Custom House employees who were assigned to Mint as temporary clerks for this period.
Hybrid insects.
Description of the Salvages.
Variability of "transition groups" of insects; relation of variability to ranges of insects. The variability of wings, even within species. Reduction of flying ability on isolated islands.
Forbes’s "Atlantis" theory and insect fauna of the Atlantic islands, considered with regard to insect migrations.
Gives instances of sexual differences in the number of tarsi within species of Coleoptera and also variation in the number of tarsi between related species.
A page of [unspecified] text is missing from a parcel of material received from GRW.
CD "hopes and expects to live to see Carboniferous, & perhaps even Silurian, mammifers!"
Has several questions to ask whenever they meet.
Will visit JH tomorrow at Bedford Place to submit LW's wax model for Kaffir medal.
Reminds WB that Mint rules do not permit paying skilled laborer's wages to casual employees such as Patrick Shanahan.
CD’s tabulation of colonists curious but explicable.
Working on Tasmanian flora; contemplating general essay on Australian distribution: Tasmania and Australia same alpine species; Swan River flora very peculiar and quite distinct from New South Wales.
Trying to establish new journal at Linnean.
Copy [in JH's hand] of doctor's prescription for four to five weeks of bed rest and country air for JH before resuming duties at Mint.
Latitude overrules everything in distribution. Alpine distributions are like insular. Tabulating proportions.
T. V. Wollaston’s Madeira insects: many flightless, thus not blown to sea. TVW’s insects do not confirm Forbes’s Atlantis.
Sends audit form with covering letter for JH's signature.
Asks GS about ordering instruments from [George] Wilson.
JH's health is worse. Please expedite JH's request to resign from mastership of Mint. Seeks HT's approval to turn JH's duties over to W. H. Barton.
Expects difficulty with wages listed for Patrick Shanahan and one other worker at Mint. Find documents that authorized JH to pay additional overtime wages during coinage pressure of last two years.
Comparison of skulls of Ichthyosaurus and Cetacea.
Delayed paying [W. O.] Young until JH approves papers on Hannibal claim [for ship's salvage].
Encloses two Mint documents relating to wages for Patrick Shanahan and another worker. JH failed to return papers on Hannibal claim.
Gives former reason for retaining Charles Stiles, who may now be dismissed.