From Francis Darwin to Lawson Tait   22 July [1875]¹

My dear Sir

My Father desires me to say that he is so much engaged with other subjects that he cannot attend to Drosera at present. He is much obliged for the specimens & returns the box registered & hopes that its contents will survive their double journey in safety.² The production of buds from Drosera leaves is a well known phenomenon but my Father has forgotten the references to the subject. My asks me to say, that he regrets that the digestive power of the fluid in the virgin pitchers of Nepenthes³ was not tested with small cubes of white of egg; until this is done he doubts whether physiologists would admit the presence of the ferment. He desires me to thank you much for your kind desire to help him

Yours truly | Francis Darwin