A friend of JJA’s wants CD’s opinion on whether the disease porigo decalvans (hair falling out in clumps) demonstrates the link between man and dogs and has continued to evolve with man after he passed out of his "hairy-animal state".
Capt. [Richard?] Burton disagrees with CD’s notion of beauty in the abstract, and would like to meet him.
Is sending the requested photograph.
Mr Murray will send a copy of CD’s Journal of researches to L. S. Bouton [see 8107a].
Has no objection to CD’s alluding to FM’s idea that sexual selection has come into play in mimetic butterflies.
Reports observations on other butterflies and on termites.
Requests a prescribed physic [not specified].
Sends a pamphlet [not identified] in which he applies the principle of natural selection to the working of legislative institutions.
His father has gone to Egypt.
Tells of visit to circus.
Has some birds which are allegedly the result of a cross between a common fowl and a guinea-fowl; describes their appearance, and will provide CD with likenesses.
Thanks recipient for memoir on fossil plants of the Devonian and Upper Silurian.
No summary available.
Thanks LHM for his work on consanguinity. [See 7299].
Describes the occurrence of earthworms and the signs of earthworm activity in the neighbourhood.
Gives results of probing worm-holes with wire.
Discusses his paper on mimicry and natural selection [Land and Water 9 (1871): 321]. Believes natural selection tends to fix mimetic characters rigidly.
Thanks for observations on angles of worm-holes on slopes. William Darwin is observing at Stonehenge. She is worth her weight in gold.
Discusses earthworm activity observed in old ploughed fields.
His rabbits have lost their patches and are grey.
Has FG seen William Crookes [spiritualist]?
Discusses the problems of mimicry as related to natural selection; the general variability of colour as a character; and the conditions necessary for natural selection to fix firmly a character.
Encloses a Fritz Müller letter speculating that organisms respond to certain colours because of the prevalence of those colours in their environment.
Louis Agassiz is going on a voyage to the Falklands, and BJS wonders whether it is worth while telling him of the Gallegos fossil bed so that he can investigate.
William [Hooker] is in first division of matriculation list of London University.
Other family news.
No news on Ayrton affair. Ayrton has taken staff appointments out of JDH’s hands.
Asks whether CD knows about Zizania aquatica – can hardly believe it is an annual.
No summary available.