More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2 A Record of His Work in a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Letters

naturalists." He published a work on "Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders," London, 1873, and wrote on the Flora of Mentone and on other subjects. (See "The Descent of Man" Vo...

-mentioned. -address to Linnean Society. -Darwin's criticism on address. -letters to. -extract from letter to. -views on species and on "Origin." -on fertilisation mechanism in...

Gray, 2 volumes, Boston, U.S., 1893). -articles by. -as advocate of Darwin's views. -Darwin's opinion of. -on Hooker's Antarctic paper. -on large genera varying. -letters to Dar...

It is always a pleasure to me to receive a letter from you. I am very sorry to hear that you have been more troubled than usual with your old complaint. Any one who looked at yo...

Thiselton-Dyer, Sir W., assists Darwin in bloom-experiments. -Darwin signs his certificate for Royal Society. -lecture on plant distribution as field for geographical research....

xxvii, 1855, and "Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XV., 1855. -on flora of Azores. -on Chambers as author of the "Vestiges." -on continental extension. -Darwin opposed to his views...

where it was in the time of MacCulloch (522/5. "On the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy." "Geol. Trans." Volume IV., page 314, 1817 (with several maps and sections).) and Dick. (522/6...

Lyell, Bart." edited by his sister-in-law, Mrs. Lyell, 2 Volumes, London, 1881. "Charles Lyell and Modern Geology," Prof. T.G. Bonney, London, 1895.) -"Antiquity of Man." -on Ba...

I take the liberty of addressing you for the purpose of directing your attention to an error in one of your ingenious explanations of the structural adaptations of the Orchidace...

You are always so ready to appreciate what others do, and especially to overestimate my desultory efforts, that I cannot be surprised at your very kind and flattering remarks on...

(590/1. The genera Scaevola and Leschenaultia, to which the following letter refers, belong to the Goodeniaceae (Goodenovieae, Bentham & Hooker), an order allied to the Lobeliac...

It was very good of you to write me so long a letter, which has interested me much. I should have answered it sooner, but I have not been very well for the few last days. Your l...

(687/1. In November, 1880, on receipt of an account of a flood in Brazil from which Fritz Muller had barely escaped with his life ("Life and Letters," III., 242); Darwin immedia...

I hope you will read the first part of my paper before you go [to Glen Roy], and attend to the manner in which the lines end in Glen Collarig. I wish Mr. Milne had read it more...

(757/1. During the closing years of his life, Darwin began to experimentise on the possibility of producing galls artificially. A letter to Sir J.D. Hooker (November 3rd, 1880)...

I have been looking at the fertilisation of wheat, and I think possibly you might find something curious. I observed in almost every one of the pollen-grains, which had become e...

Many thanks for your kind remarks and notes on my book. Several of the latter will be of use to me if I have to prepare a second edition, which I am not so sure of as you seem t...

I am very glad to hear that you think of discussing the relative ranges of the identical and allied U. States and European species, when you have time. Now this leads me to make...

I have endeavoured to think over your discussion, but not with much success. You will have to lay down, I think, very clearly, what foundation you argue from--four parts (which...

I have just read Ball's Essay. (395/1. The late John Ball's lecture "On the Origin of the Flora of the Alps" in the "Proceedings of the R. Geogr. Soc." 1879. Ball argues (page 1...

(518/1. It was agreed at the British Association meeting held at Southampton in 1846 "That application be made to Her Majesty's Government to direct that during the progress of...

I thank you cordially for all your full information, and I regret much that I have given you such great trouble at a period when your time is so much occupied. But the facts wer...

I have now finished the whole of Volume I., with the same interest and admiration as before; and I am convinced that my judgment was right and that it is a memorable book, the b...

"I thought I had found out what puzzled us in Coronilla varia: in most of the Papilionaceae, when the tenth stamen is free, there is nectar in the staminal tube, and the opening...

I have been greatly interested by your letter, but your view is not new to me. (429/1. We have not been able to find Mr. Wallace's letter to which this is a reply. It evidently...

I have been in London, which has prevented my writing sooner. I am very sorry to hear that you have been ill: if influenza, I can believe in any degree of prostration of strengt...

An interesting fact has lately, as it were, passed through my hands. A Mr. Kemp (almost a working man), who has written on "parallel roads," and has corresponded with me (577/1....

Considering the probability of subsidence in the middle of the great oceans being very slow; considering in how many spaces, both large ones and small ones (within areas favoura...

It was very good of you to write to me from Tortugas, as I always feel much interested in hearing what you are about, and in reading your many discoveries. It is a surprising fa...

I have so much to thank you for that I hardly know how to begin. I have received the bulbils of Oxalis, and your most interesting letter of October 1st. I planted half the bulbs...

I have been much interested with your letter, and am delighted that you have thought my few remarks worth attention. My observations on foliation are more deserving confidence t...

Acropera is a beast,--stigma does not open, everything seems contrived that it shall NOT be anyhow fertilised. There is something very odd about it, which could only be made out...

I have just received your letter of August 2nd, and am, as usual, astonished at the number of interesting points which you observe. It is quite curious how, by coincidence, you...

Your letter, as every one you have written, has greatly interested me. If you can show that certain individual Passifloras, under certain known or unknown conditions of life, ha...

I am so much better that I have just finished a paper for the Linnean Society (406/2. On the three forms, etc., of Lythrum.); but I am not yet at all strong, I felt much disincl...

I am now reading Miquel on "Flora of Japan" (384/1. Miquel, "Flore du Japon": "Archives Neerlandaises" ii., 1867.), and like it: it is rather a relief to me (though, of course,...

(397/1. The following letters were written to Sir J.D. Hooker when he was preparing his Address as President of the Geographical Section of the British Association at its fiftie...

Very many thanks for "Fraser" (412/1. "Hereditary Improvement," by Francis Galton, "Fraser's Magazine," January 1873, page 116.): I have been greatly interested by your article....

I much regret that I am unable to give you any information of the kind you desire. You must have misunderstood Mr. Lyell concerning the object of my paper. (479/1. "On the Conne...

(442/1. Dr. Clifford Allbutt's view probably had reference to the fact that the sperm-cell goes, or is carried, to the germ-cell, never vice versa. In this letter Darwin gives t...

I have been much interested with Ramsay, but have no particular suggestions to offer (482/1. "On the Denudation of South Wales and the Adjacent Counties of England." A.C. Ramsay...

Thanks for your note. I have not written for a long time, for I always fancy, busy as you are, that my letters must be a bore; though I like writing, and always enjoy your notes...

I should have replied sooner to your last kind and interesting letters, but they reached me in the midst of my packing previous to removal here, and I have only just now got my...

I am very much obliged by your letter of February 13th, abounding with so many highly interesting facts. Your account of the Rubiaceous plant is one of the most extraordinary th...

I am very much obliged for your long letter, which has interested me much; but before coming to the volcanic cosmogony I must say that I cannot gather your verdict as judge and...

(440/1. The following refers to Mr. Wallace's article "A Theory of Birds' Nests," in Andrew Murray's "Journal of Travel," Volume I., page 73. He here treats in fuller detail the...

I am much obliged by your note. I returned from London on Saturday, and I found then your memoir (521/1. "On the Parallel Roads of Lochaber, with Remarks on the Change of Relati...

appendix (499/2. "M. Agassiz has lately written on the subject of the glaciers and boulders of the Alps. He clearly proves, as it appears to me, that the presence of the boulder...

Your view seems to be that variations occurring in one sex are transmitted either to that sex exclusively or to both sexes equally, or more rarely partially transferred. But we...

You must allow me the pleasure of thanking you for the great interest with which I have read your "Prehistoric Europe." (514/1. "Prehistoric Europe: a Geological Sketch," London...

I have been deeply interested in your letter, and so far, at least, worthy of the time it must have cost you to write it. I have not much to say. I look at the whole question as...

I remembered the passage in E. de B. [Elie de Beaumont] and have now re-read it. I have always and do still entirely disbelieve it; in such a wonderful case he ought to have ham...

Many thanks for the pamphlet, which was returned this morning. I was very glad to read it, though chiefly as a psychological curiosity. I quite follow you in thinking Agassiz gl...

I am greatly obliged for your kind note, and much pleased with its contents. If one-third of what you say be really true, and not the verdict of a partial judge (as from pleasan...

To-morrow I will return registered your book, which I have kept so long. I am most sincerely obliged for its loan, and especially for the MS., without which I should have been a...

...Now I want to beg for assistance for the new edition of "Origin." Nageli himself urges that plants offer many morphological differences, which from being of no service cannot...

I was heartily glad to get your last letter; but on my life your thanks for my very few and very dull letters quite scalded me. I have been very indolent and selfish in not havi...

simultaneous activity after an earthquake of several volcanoes in the Cordillera.)) I can throw no light on the subject. I presume you remember that Hopkins (488/2. See "Report...

(Mrs. Emily Talbot was secretary of the Education Department of the American Social Science Association, Boston, Mass. A circular and register was issued by the Department, and...

(487/1. The paper was sent in MS., and seems not to have been published. Mr. Woodd was connected by marriage with Mr. Darwin's cousin, the late Rev. W. Darwin Fox. It was perhap...

We were yesterday and the day before house-hunting, so I could not answer your letter. I hope we have succeeded in a house, after infinite trouble, but am not sure, in York Plac...

It is a splendid scheme, and if you make only a beginning on a "Flora," which shall serve as an index to all papers on curious points in the life-history of plants, you will do...

I ought to have stated [it] more clearly, but undoubtedly in W. Tierra del Fuego, where clay-slate passes by alternation into a grand district of mica-schist, and in the Chonos...

I have now to thank you for no less than four letters! You are so kind that I will not apologise for the trouble I cause you; but it has lately occurred to me that you ought to...

You see that I have taken you at your word, and have not (owing to heaps of stupid letters) earlier noticed your three last letters, which as usual are rich in facts. Your lette...

I have delayed answering your last letter of February 25th, as I was just sending to the printers the MS. of a very little book on the habits of earthworms, of which I will of c...

You end your letter of September 9th by saying that it is a very dull one; indeed, you make a very great mistake, for it abounds with interesting facts and thoughts. Your accoun...

Many thanks for your kindness about the lodgings--it will be of great use to me. (581/1. The British Association met at Oxford in 1847.) Please let me know the address if Mr. Ja...

I am much obliged for your kind note, and especially for your offer of sending me some time corrections, for which I shall be truly grateful. I know that there are many blunders...

I have been much pleased to hear that you have been looking at my S. American book (495/1. "Geological Observations on South America," London, 1846.), which I thought was as com...

(661/1. The following was written in reply to Mr. Gosse's letter of May 30th asking for a solution of his difficulties in fertilising Stanhopea. It is reprinted by the kind perm...

I have read Mr. Jamieson's last letter, like the former ones, with very great interest. (525/1. Mr. Jamieson visited Glen Roy in August 1861 and in July 1862. His paper "On the...

(654/1. The following letters to Hooker, April 1st, April 5th and May 22nd, refer to Darwin's scheme of employing Scott as an assistant at Down, and to Scott's appointment to th...

...The beauty of the adaptation of parts seems to me unparalleled. I should think or guess [that] waxy pollen was most differentiated. In Cypripedium, which seems least modified...

I have received your two letters of March 2nd and 5th, and I really do not know how to thank you enough for your extraordinary kindness and energy. I am glad to hear that the in...

Your letter of April 22nd has much interested me. I am delighted that you approve of my book, for I value your opinion more than that of almost any one. I have yet hopes that yo...

I am very much obliged for all your trouble in writing me your long letter, which I will keep by me and ponder over. To answer it would require at least 200 folio pages! If you...

I have left home for a fortnight to see if I can, with little hope, improve my health. The parcel of orchid pods, which you have so kindly sent me, has followed me. I am sure yo...

I thank you for your two letters of December 15th and March 29th, both abounding with curious facts. I have been particularly glad to hear in your last about the Eschscholtzia (...

As you so kindly helped me before on dimorphism, will you forgive me begging for a little further information, if in your power to give it? The case is that of the Melastomads w...

(417/1. Part of this letter (here omitted) is published in "Life and Letters," III., page 225, and the whole in the "Life and Letters of G.J. Romanes," page 74. The lecture refe...

I have been extremely much pleased by your letter, and I take it as a very great compliment that you should have written to me at such length...I am not at all surprised that yo...

I really hardly know how to thank you enough for your very interesting letter. I shall certainly use all the facts which you have given me (in a condensed form) on the sterility...

It is a long time since I have written, but I cannot boast that I have refrained from charity towards you, but from having lots of work...You ask what I have been doing. Nothing...

I received some time ago a very interesting letter from you with many facts about Oxalis, and about the non-seeding and spreading of one species. I may mention that our common O...

I daresay there is a great deal of truth in your remarks on the glacial affair, but we are in a muddle, and shall never agree. I am bigoted to the last inch, and will not yield....

I have read professor Geikie's essay, and it certainly appears to me that he underrated the importance of floating ice. (516/1. "The Intercrossing of Erratics in Glacial Deposit...

I am glad to hear your opinion on the nest-making instinct, for I am Tory enough not to like to give up all old beliefs. Wallace's view (445/1. See Letter 440, etc.) is also opp...

1. When the plant goes to sleep, the terminal leaflets hang vertically down, but the petioles move up towards the axis, so that the dependent leaves are all crowded round it. Th...

(601/1. Part of the following letter is published in the "Life and Letters," the remainder, with the omission of part bearing on the Glen Roy problem, is now given as an example...

What a capital observer you are! and how well you have worked the primulas. All your facts are new to me. It is likely that I overrate the interest of the subject; but it seems...

(464/1. The late Sir W. Bowman, the well-known surgeon, supplied a good deal of information of value to Darwin in regard to the expression of the emotions. The gorging of the ey...

I have read your long letter with the greatest interest, and it was extremely kind of you to take such great trouble. Now that you call my attention to the fact, I well know the...

I read over your last ten (!) letters this morning, and made an index of their contents for easy reference; and what a mine of wealth you have bestowed on me. I am glad you will...

I have been able to read rather more quickly of late, and have finished your book. I have not much to say. Your careful account of the temperate parts of South America intereste...

I am very much obliged to you for telling me the results of your foliaceous tour, and I am glad you are drawing up an account for the Royal Society. (539/1. "On the Arrangement...

I was glad to read your article on Glaciers, etc., in Yorkshire. You seem to have been struck with what most deeply impressed me at Glen Roy (wrong as I was on the whole subject...

Your discovery is a very interesting one, and I congratulate you on it. (513/1. "On the Precise Mode of Accumulation and Derivation of the Moel-Tryfan Shelly Deposits; on the Di...

the Pampean mud] contains in it recent species of shells, some of them proper to brackish water, and is believed by Mr. Darwin to be an estuary or delta deposit. M.A. D'Orbigny,...

(633/1. The following is Darwin's reply to the above letter from Scott. In the first edition of "Fertilisation of Orchids" (page 209) he assumed that the sexes in Acropera, as i...

I am truly pleased at your approval of my book (556/1. "Geological Observations on South America," London, 1846.): it was very kind of you taking the trouble to tell me so. I lo...

Having nothing on earth to do here, I have dissected all the spiral vessels in a flower, and instead of burning my diagrams [Figures 10 and 11], I send them to you, you miserabl...

I have hardly ever received a note which has interested me more than your last; and this is no exaggeration. I had a few cases of birds perceiving slight changes in the dress of...

Now for a few words on science. I do not think I could be mistaken about the stigma of Bolbophyllum (644/1. Bolbophyllum is remarkable for the closure of the stigmatic cavity wh...

(773/1. Sir T. Lauder Brunton had written (February 12th) to Mr. Darwin explaining that two opinions were held as to the constitution of the proposed Science Defence Association...

I am much obliged for your letter, which is full of interesting matter. I shall be very glad to look at the capsule of the Acropera when ripe, and pray present my thanks to Mr....

I have come here for a few weeks, for a little change and rest. Just as I was leaving home I received your first note, and yesterday a second; and both are most interesting and...

I think I have thought over the whole case without prejudice, and remain firmly convinced they [the parallel roads] are marine beaches. My principal reason for doing so is what...

I received your last letter shortly before leaving home for this place. Owing to this cause and to having been more unwell than usual I have been very dilatory in writing to you...

(745/1. This letter refers to the purchase of instruments for the Jodrell Laboratory in the Royal Gardens, Kew. "The Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advanceme...

I fear that you think that I have done more than I have with respect to Dr. Hooker. I did not feel that I had any right to ask him to remember you for a colonial appointment: al...

The offer of your valuable notes is most generous, but it would vex me to take so much from you, as it is certain that you could work up the subject very much better than I coul...

I have now read with the greatest interest your essay, which contains a vast amount of matter quite new to me. (462/1. "Anwendung der Darwin'schen Lehre auf Bienen," "Verhandl....

Many thanks for seeds of the Malva and information about Averrhoa, which I perceived was sensitive, as A. carambola is said to be; and about Mimosa sensitiva. The log-wood [Haem...

I am extremely glad of your success with the flashing light. (762/1. Romanes' paper on the effect of intermittent light on heliotropism was the "Proc. Royal Soc." Volume LIV., p...

(433/1. Mr. John Jenner Weir, to whom the following letters are addressed, is frequently quoted in the "Descent of Man" as having supplied Mr. Darwin with information on a varie...

The latter I want about some strange movements in cells of Drosera, which Meyen alone seems to have observed. (597/1. No observations of Meyen are mentioned in "Insectivorous Pl...

(453/1. A short account of the Periodical Cicada (C. septendecim) is given by Dr. Sharp in the Cambridge Natural History, Insects II., page 570. We are indebted to Dr. Sharp for...

I hope that you may find time to go on with your experiments on such plants as Lagerstroemia, mentioned in your letter of October 29th, for I believe you will arrive at new and...

I am infinitely obliged for your most clearly stated observations on the bee-orchis. It is now perfectly clear that something removes the pollen-masses far more with you than in...

Many thanks for your note. I am very glad indeed to read remarks made by a man who possesses such varied and odd knowledge as you do, and who is so acute a reasoner. I have no d...

I am glad you know my feeling of not being able to judge about one's own work; but I suspect that you have been overworking. I should think you could not give too much time to W...

It has been extremely kind of you telling me about the trees: now with your facts, and those from Britain, N. Zealand, and Tasmania I shall have fair materials for judging. I am...

(465/1. Mr. Darwin was indebted to Sir W. Bowman for an introduction to Professor Donders, whose work on Sir Charles Bell's views is quoted in the "Expression of the Emotions,"...

I thank you most sincerely for sending me the Epipactis [palustris]. You can hardly imagine what an interesting morning's work you have given me, as the rostellum exhibited a qu...

I must have the pleasure of expressing to you my unbounded admiration of your book (389/4. "Geographical Distribution," 1876.), though I have read only to page 184--my object ha...

I have received the seeds and your most interesting letter of February 7th. The seeds shall be sown, and I shall like to see the plants sleeping; but I doubt whether I shall mak...

(605/2. The following letter is of interest because it relates to one of the two chief difficulties Darwin met with in working out the morphology of the orchid flower. In the or...

I thank you for your very interesting letter; I must answer as briefly as I can, for I have a heap of other letters to answer. I strongly advise you to follow up and publish you...

I suppose I must have known that the stamens recovered their former position in Berberis (704/1. See Farrer, "Nature," II., 1870, page 164. Lord Farrer was before H. Muller in m...

You must be a clair-voyant or something of that kind to have sent me such useful plants. Twenty-five years ago I described in my father's garden two forms of Linum flavum (think...

...Dana is dreadfully hypothetical in many parts, and often as "d--d cocked sure" as Macaulay. He writes however so lucidly that he is very persuasive. I am more struck with his...

Your letter was forwarded me here. I was the more glad to receive it, as I never dreamed of your being able to find time to write, now that you must be so very busy; and I had n...

(512/1. The following letter was in reply to a request from Prof. James Geikie for permission to publish Mr. Darwin's views, communicated in a previous letter (November 1876), o...

Very many thanks for your kind letter. I have been interested by what you tell me about your views published in 1848, and I wish I could read your essay. It is clear to me that...

(750/1. The following letters refer to two forms of wheat cultivated in Russia under the names Kubanka and Saxonka, which had been sent to Mr. Darwin by Dr. Asher from Samara, a...

I shall write again. I write now merely to ask, if you have Naravelia (666/1. Ranunculaceae.) (the Clematis-like plant told me by Oliver), to try and propagate me a plant at onc...

I have been very glad to receive your letter this morning. I have for some time been wishing to write to you, but have been half worked to death in correcting my uncouth English...

(758/1. "The Power of Movement in Plants" was published early in November, 1880. Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer, in writing to thank Darwin for a copy of the book, had (November 20th) co...

I received your letter yesterday, but was unable to answer it, as I had to go out at once on business of importance. I am very glad that you are reconsidering the subject of fol...

I cannot resist thanking you for your most kind note. Pray do not think that I was annoyed by your letter. I perceived that you had been thinking with animation, and accordingly...

"With regard to the loss of voluntary movement of the ears in man and monkey, may I ask if you do not think it might have been caused, as it is certainly compensated, by the fac...

I have been much interested by your letter, for which I thank you heartily. There was not the least cause for you to apologise for not having written sooner, for I attributed it...

I have to thank you very sincerely for two letters: one of April 25th, containing a very curious account of the structure and morphology of Bonatea. I feel that it is quite a si...

(706/1. In Riley's opinion his most important work was the series entitled "Annual Report on the Noxious, Beneficial, and other Insects of the State of Missouri" (Jefferson City...

I have read your Review with much interest, and I thank you sincerely for the very kind spirit in which it is written. I cannot say that I am convinced by your criticisms. (477/...

I read yesterday the notes on Round Island (386/1. In Wallace's "Island Life," page 410, Round Island is described as an islet "only about a mile across, and situated about four...

I am unwell, and must write briefly. I am very much obliged for the "Courant." (645/1. The Edinburgh "Evening Courant" used to publish notices of the papers read at the Botanica...

What two very interesting and useful letters you have sent me. You rather astound me with respect to value of grounds of generalisation in the morphology of plants. It reminds m...

Lady Dorothy sent me a young plant of U[tricularia] montana (727/1. See "Life and Letters," III., page 327, and "Insectivorous Plants," page 431.), which I fancy is the species...

I have been very glad to read your paper on Peloria. (660/1. "On the Existence of Two Forms of Peloria." "Natural History Review," April, 1863, page 258.) For the mere chance of...

I thank you sincerely for your letter. I am very glad to hear about Lathyrus odoratus, for here in England the vars. never cross, and yet are sometimes visited by bees. (714/1....

I got your letter of the 1st this morning, and a real good man you have been to write. Of all the things I ever heard, Mrs. Hooker's pedestrian feats beat them. My brother is qu...

I thank you for your very kind and deeply interesting letter of March 1st, received yesterday, and for the present of your work, which no doubt I shall soon receive from Dr. Hoo...

You make a very great mistake when you speak of "the risk of your notes boring me." They are of the utmost value to me, and I am sure I shall never be tired of receiving them; b...

I am very much obliged for your Address (404/2. Mr. Horner's Anniversary Address to the Geological Society ("Proc. Geol. Soc." XVII., 1861).) which has interested me much...I th...

I am very glad that this will reach you at Kew. You will then get rest, and I do hope some lull in anxiety and fear. Nothing is so dreadful in this life as fear; it still sicken...

(741/1. Professor L. Errera, of Brussels wrote, as a student, to Darwin, asking permission to send the MS. of an essay by his friend S. Gevaert and himself on cross and self-fer...

I was with Mr. Wood this morning, and he expressed himself strongly about your and your daughter's kindness in aiding him. He much wants assistance on another point, and if you...

It certainly seems to me safer to rely solely on the slowness of ascertained up-and-down movement. But you could argue length of probable time before the movement became reverse...

and in Brazil by F. Muller, who "fertilised above one hundred flowers of the above-mentioned Oncidium flexuosum, which is there endemic, with its own pollen, and with that taken...

Your kindness when I met you at the Royal Society makes me think that you would grant me the favour of a little information, if in your power. I am preparing a book on Domestic...

I hope that you will not think me ungrateful that I have not sooner answered your note of the 16th; but in fact I have been overwhelmed both with calls and letters; and, alas! o...

Masdevallia turns out nothing wonderful (617/1. This may refer to the homologies of the parts. He was unable to understand the mechanism of the flower.--"Fertilisation of Orchid...

(769/1. In November, 1881, an absolutely groundless charge was brought by the Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection against Dr. Ferrier for an i...

(716/1. Sir J. Burdon Sanderson showed that in Dionoea movement is accompanied by electric disturbances closely analogous to those occurring in muscle (see "Nature," 1874, pages...

(420/1. Romanes was at work on what ultimately came to be a book on animal intelligence. Romanes's reply to this letter is given in his "Life," page 95. The table referred to is...

I have read with the greatest interest the last paper which you have kindly sent me. (509/1. Croll discussed the power of icebergs as grinding and striating agents in the latter...

I enclose a letter from Chambers, which has pleased me very much (which please return), but I cannot feel quite so sure as he does. If the Lochaber and Tweed roads really turn o...

(729/1. On July 9th Mr. Weir wrote to say that a branch of the Cytisus had been despatched to Down. The present letter was doubtless written after Darwin had examined the specim...

I am afraid I have caused you a great deal of trouble in writing to me at such length. I am glad to say that I agree almost entirely with your summary, except that I should put...

over it, but it strikes me as extra well arranged and written--done in the most artistic manner, to use an expression which I particularly hate. Though I am necessarily pretty w...

From what you say I looked again at "Bot. Zeitung." (648/1. "Ueber Dichogamie," "Bot. Zeit." January 1863.) Treviranus speaks of P. longiflora as short-styled, but this is evide...

I am rejoiced to hear that your eyesight is somewhat better; but I fear that work with the microscope is still out of your power. I have often thought with sincere sympathy how...

(728/1. In 1870 Mr. Jenner Weir wrote to Darwin: "My brother has but two kinds of laburnum, viz., Cytisus purpureus, very erect, and Cytisus alpinus, very pendulous. He has seve...

The plants arrived last night in first-rate order, and it was very very good of you to take so much trouble as to hunt them up yourself. They seem exactly what I wanted, and if...

I have been trying a few experiments on Melastomads; and they seem to indicate that the pollen of the two curious sets of anthers (i.e. the petal-facers and the sepal-facers) ha...

I want to ask a question which will take you only few words to answer. It bears on my former belief (and Asa Gray strongly expressed opinion) that Papilionaceous flowers were fa...

(418/1. This letter has been published in Clapperton's "Scientific Meliorism," 1885, page 340, together with Mr. Gaskell's letter of November 13th (page 337). Mr. Gaskell's laws...

(570/1. In May, 1870, Darwin "went to the Bull Hotel, Cambridge, to see the boys, and for a little rest and enjoyment." (570/2. See "Life and Letters," III., 125.) The following...

Will you have the kindness to read the enclosed, and look at the diagram. Six words will answer my question. It is not an important point, but there is to me an irresistible cha...

(658/1. The following letter illustrates the truth of Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer's remark that Darwin was never "afraid of his facts." (658/2. "Charles Darwin" (Nature Series), 1882,...

(506/1. In a letter from Sir Joseph Hooker to Mr. Darwin on February 21st, 1866, the following passage occurs: "I wish I could explain to you my crude notions as to the Glacial...

If I had written your Address (515/1. Address delivered by Lord Avebury as President of the British Association at York in 1881. Dr. Hicks is mentioned as having classed the pre...

If you had come here on Sunday I should have asked you whether you could give me seed or seedlings of any Melastomad which would flower soon to experiment on! I wrote also to J....

Many thanks for your first volume (457/1. "The Descent of Man".), which I have just finished reading through with the greatest pleasure and interest; and I have also to thank yo...

Thank you for the most interesting correspondence. What a wonderful case that of Bedford. (527/1. No doubt this refers to the discovery of flint implements in the Valley of the...

Dr. Cruger has sent me the enclosed paper, with power to do what I think fit with it. He would evidently prefer it to appear in the "Nat. Hist. Review." Please read it, and let...

(458/1. We are indebted to Mr. Murdoch for a draft of his letter dated March 10th, 1871. It is too long to be quoted at length; the following citations give some idea of its con...

No doubt I owe to your kindness two pamphlets received a few days ago, which have interested me in an extraordinary degree. (683/1. This refers to F. Muller's "Bestaubungsversuc...

its importance in relation to the evolution of the habit of climbing. The present letter was probably written in 1865, since it refers to Muller's paper read before the Linnean...

We have been paying Mr. Rich a little visit, and he has often spoken of you, and I think he enjoyed much your and Mrs. Huxley's visit here. But my object in writing now is to te...

(766/1. A Bill was introduced to the House of Commons by Messrs. Lyon Playfair, Walpole and Ashley, in the spring of 1875, but was withdrawn on the appointment of a Royal Commis...

cautiously. It is the Spanish Chesnut that varies in divergence. Seeds named Viola nana were sent me from Calcutta by Scott. I must refer to the plants as an "Indian species," f...

It was real pleasure to me to see once again your well-known handwriting on the outside of your note. I do not know how long you have returned from Italy, but I am very sorry th...

I am greatly obliged to you about the Opuntia, and shall be glad if you can remember Catalpa. I wish some facts on the action of water, because I have been so surprised at a str...

(413/1. In June, 1873, Professor Max Muller sent to Mr. Darwin a copy of the sixth edition of his "Lectures on the Science of Language" (413/2. A reference to the first edition...

of the Organic World now in Progress.") I think I formerly gave my few criticisms, but I will read it over again very soon (though I am striving to finish my S. American Geology...

Prof. Miquel, of Utrecht, begs me to ask you for your carte, and offers his in return. I grieve to bother you on such a subject. I am sick and tired of this carte correspondence...

You stated at the Linnean Society that different sets of seedling Cinchona (623/1. Cinchona is apparently heterostyled: see "Forms of Flowers," Edition II., page 134.) grew at v...

I hope that you will not think me a great bore, but I have this minute finished reading your address at the British Association; and it has interested me so much that I cannot r...

Many thanks for your very kind letter. So few people will read my book at all regularly, that a criticism from one who does so will be very welcome. If, as I suppose, it is only...

extraordinary and ought to be further investigated. Do the leaflets sleep on the following night in the usual manner? Do the same leaflets on successive nights move in the same...

very partial application, for active volcanoes, even such as are on the borders of continents, are rarely situated where great deltas have been forming, whether in Pliocene or p...

Very many thanks for your note. I have been observing the [worm] tracks on my walks for several months, and they occur (or can be seen) only after heavy rain. As I know that wor...

I was quite mistaken about the "Gardeners' Chronicle;" in my index there are only the few enclosed and quite insignificant references having any relation to the minds of animals...

I have heard from Sulivan (who, poor fellow, gives a very bad account of his own health) about the fossils (568/1. In a letter to Huxley (June 4th, 1866) Darwin wrote: "Admiral...

If you had called here after I had read the article you would have found a much perplexed man. (777/1. Probably Sir W. Crookes' "Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism" (re...

Owing to other occupations I was able to read only yesterday your paper on the dispersal of the seeds of Compositae. (707/1. "Ueber die Verbreitungsmittel der Compositenfruchte....

I am particularly obliged for your address. (726/1. Presidential address (Biological Section) at the Belfast meeting of the British Association, 1874.) It strikes me as quite ex...

What a magnificent capsule, and good Heavens, what a number of seeds! I never before opened pods of larger orchids. It did not signify a few seed being lost, as it would be hope...

(421/1. Mr. Preston wrote (May 20th, 1880) to the effect that "self-interest as a motive for conduct is a thing to be commended--and it certainly [is] I think...the only conceiv...

I have been putting off writing from day to day, as I did not wish to trouble you, till my wish for a little news will not let me rest...

I must write a line or two to thank you much for having written to me so long a letter on coral reefs at a time when you must have been so busy. Is it not difficult to avoid bel...

Many thanks for seeds of Trifolium resupinatum, which are invaluable to us. I enclose seeds of a Cassia, from Fritz Muller, and they are well worth your cultivation; for he says...

I hardly know which of your three last letters has interested me most. What splendid work I shall have hereafter in selecting and arranging all your facts. Your last letter is m...

(547/1. The five following letters, written shortly before and after the publication of "The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms," 1881, deal with questions...

I wrote to you a few days ago to thank you about Pontederia, and now I am going to ask you to add one more to the many kindnesses which you have done for me. I have made many ob...

The notion you refer to was published in the "Geological Journal" (502/1. "on the Transportal of Erratic Boulders from a lower to a higher Level." By C. Darwin.), Volume IV. (18...

I am delighted that you are in the field, geologising or palaeontologising. I beg you to read the two Rogers' account of the Coal-fields of N. America; in my opinion they are em...

The fine lot of seeds arrived yesterday, and are all sown, and will be most useful. If you remember, pray thank Mr. Lynch for his aid. I had not thought of beech or sycamore, bu...

Grove is disgusted at your being disquieted about W. Thomson. Tell George from me not to sit upon you with his mathematics. When I threatened your tropical cooling views with th...

I must send you a line to say how extremely good your article appears to me to be. It is even better than I thought, and I remember thinking it very good. I am particularly glad...

I thank you sincerely for your very kind letter, and for the present of your new work. (763/1. "Das Bewegungsvermogen der Pflanze," 1881. One of us has given some account of Wie...

I return Jamieson's capital letter. I have no comments, except to say that he has removed all my difficulties, and that now and for evermore I give up and abominate Glen Roy and...

...I think that I must have expressed myself badly about Humboldt. I should have said that he was more remarkable for his astounding knowledge than for originality. I have alway...

in terms of gemmules he is practically following Naudin's treatment of the same theme in terms of "essences." Naudin, however, does not clearly distinguish between hybrid and pu...

A paper which has interested me greatly by a gardener, John Scott; it seems to me a most remarkable production, though written rather obscurely in parts, but worth the labour of...

I am sorry to say that I do not return home till the middle of next week, and as I order no pamphlets to be forwarded to me by post, I cannot return the "Geolog. Mag." until my...

Mr. [J.P. Mansel] Weale sent to me from Natal a small packet of dry locust dung, under 1/2 oz., with the statement that it is believed that they introduce new plants into a dist...

I wrote to you about a week ago, thanking you for information on cabbage seeds, asking you the name of Luzula or Carex, and on some other points; and I hope before very long to...

I do not quite agree with your estimate of Richardson's merits. Do, I beg you (whenever you quietly see), talk with Lyell on Prestwich: if he agrees with Hopkins, I am silenced;...

I have been particularly glad to receive your letter of March 25th on Pontederia, for I am now printing a small book on heterostyled plants, and on some allied subjects. I feel...

...You must kindly permit me to mention any point on which I want information. If you are so inclined, I am curious to know from systematic experiments whether Mr. D. Beaton's s...

from me in inverted commas and alters them. (697/3. The passage referred to seems to be in Owen's "Anatomy of Vertebrata," III., pages 798, 799, note. "I deeply regretted, there...

Ibid., pages 526 et seq.: "The Formation of Valleys, etc., in New South Wales."), on which your remarks strike me as exceedingly ingenious and novel, but they have not converted...

Your letter of November 2nd contained an extraordinary amount of interesting matter. What a number of dimorphic plants South Brazil produces: you observed in one day as many or...

I received your letter the other day, full of curious facts, almost all new to me, on the coal-question. (553/1. Sir Joseph Hooker deals with the formation of coal in his classi...

I see my scheme for Scott has invincible difficulties, and I am very much obliged to you for explaining them at such length. If ever I get decently well, and Scott is free and w...

I had some talk with Murchison, who has been on a flying visit into Wales, and he can see no traces of glaciers, but only of the trickling of water and of the roots of the heath...

represent the shore-lines of lakes which were imprisoned in the valleys by dams of detrital material left in the glens during a submergence of 3,000 feet, at the close of the Gl...

On my return home after a short absence I found your note of Nov. 9th, and your magnificent work on the fossil animals of Attica. (569/1. The "Geologie de l'Attique," 2 volumes...

I sent that weariful Atriplex to Babington, as I said I would, and he tells me that he has reared a facsimile by sowing the seeds of A. angustifolia in rich soil. He says he kno...

You will have received some little time ago my book on Expression, in writing which I was so deeply indebted to your kindness. I want now to beg a favour of you, if you have the...

I have not for some years been so much pleased as I have just been by reading your most able discussion on coral reefs. I thank you most sincerely for the very honourable mentio...

I hope that you will forgive the liberty which I take in writing to you and requesting a favour. Mr. H.C. Watson has given me your address, and has told me that he thought that...

Many thanks for your interesting letter. From the serene elevation of my old age I look down with amazement at your youth, vigour, and indomitable energy. With respect to Hooker...

Mr. Agassiz's book has been read aloud to me, and I am wonderfully perplexed what to think about his precise statements of the existence of glaciers in the Ceara Mountains, and...

I thank you warmly for the very kind manner with which you have taken my request. It will, in truth, be a most important service to me; for it is absolutely necessary that I sho...

(708/1. The following letter refers to a series of excellent observations on the fertilisation of Leguminosae, made by Lord Farrer in the autumn of 1869, in ignorance of Delpino...

It was extremely kind of you to write me so long and valuable a letter, the whole of which deserves careful consideration. I have been particularly pleased at what you say about...

(536/1. The following eight letters were written at a time when the subjects of cleavage and foliation were already occupying the minds of several geologists, including Sharpe,...

I am not quite sure that I understand your difficulty, so I must give what seems to me the explanation of the glacial lake theory at some little length. You know that there is a...

I have been thinking a good deal about the suggestion which you made to me the other day, on the supposition that you could not get some man like the President of the College of...

I am much obliged for your letter of October 18th, with the curious account of Abutilon, and for the seeds. A friend of mine, Mr. Farrer, has lately been studying the fertilisat...

The most striking case, which I have stumbled on, on apparent, but false relation of structure of plants to climate, seems to be Meyer and Doege's remark that there is not one s...

After writing out the greater part of my paper on Drosera, I thought of so many points to try, and I wished to re-test the basis of one large set of experiments, namely, to feel...

I hope that you will excuse the liberty which I take in writing to you and begging a favour. I have been very much interested by the abstract (too brief) of your lecture at the...

(608/1. In the following fragment occurs the earliest mention of Darwin's work on the three sexual forms of Catasetum tridentatum. Sir R. Schomburgk (608/2. "Trans. Linn. Soc."...

I am much obliged to you for your kindness in sending me an abstract of your paper on beauty. (425/1. A newspaper report of a communication to the "Dumfries Antiquarian and Natu...

When I wrote to you I had not read Ramsay. (504/1. "On the Erosion of Valleys and Lakes: a Reply to Sir Roderick Murchison's Anniversary Address to the Geographical Society." "P...

I am very much obliged for your kind present of your lecture. We have read it aloud with the greatest interest, and I agree to every word. I admire your candour and wonderful fr...

I have been much interested by your able argument against the belief that the sense of colour has been recently acquired by man. (416/1. See "Kosmos," June 1877, page 264, a rev...

I received a few days ago a small box (registered) containing dried flower-heads with brown seeds somewhat sculptured on the sides. There was no name, and I should be much oblig...

With respect to the hairs or filaments (about which I once spoke) within different parts of flowers, I have a splendid Tacsonia with perfectly pendent flowers, and there is only...

about glacial and drift or marine glacial. I see he alludes to the whole southern hemisphere. I wonder whether he has read the "Origin." Considering your facts on the Alpine pla...

There is no end to my requests. Can you spare me a good plant (or even two) of Oxalis sensitiva? The one which I have (formerly from Kew) has been so maltreated that I dare not...

I hope that you will allow me to thank you for sending me your papers in the "Phil. Magazine." (544/1. Croll published several papers in the "Philosophical Magazine" between 186...

I hope you will allow me to suggest an observation, should any opportunity occur, on a point which has interested me for many years--viz., how do the coleoptera which inhabit th...

Strange to say, I have only one little bother for you to-day, and that is to let me know about what month flowers appear in Acropera Loddigesii and luteola; for I want extremely...

I want to beg two favours of you. I wish to ascertain whether the Bower-Bird discriminates colours. (426/1. Mr. Bartlett does not seem to have supplied any information on the po...

Your extract has set me puzzling very much, and as I find I am better at present for not going out, you must let me unload my mind on paper. I thought everything so beautifully...

I write on the bare and very improbable chance of your being able to try, or get some trustworthy person to try, the following little experiment. But I may first state, as showi...

(459/1. The following letter refers to two letters to Mr. Darwin, in which Mr. Fraser pointed out that illustrations of the theory of Sexual Selection might be found amongst Bri...

worth my giving. I did not understand, or I had forgotten, that a single frond on a fern will vary; I now see that the case does come under bud-variation, and must be given by m...

(414/1. In the first edition of the "Descent of Man" Mr. Darwin wrote: "It is a more curious fact that savages did not formerly waste away, as Mr. Bagehot has remarked, before t...

I am much obliged for your note, and shall be truly obliged if you will insert any question on the subject. That is a capital remark of yours about the trimmed game cocks, and s...

(722/1. Belt's account, discussed in this letter, is probably that published in his "Naturalist in Nicaragua" (1874), where he describes "the relation between the presence of ho...

I have had a most unfortunate and extraordinary accident with your shell. I sent it by post in a strong box to Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys to be named, and heard two days afterwards that...

Every day that I could do anything, I have read a few pages of your paper, and have now finished it, and return it registered. (649/1. This refers to the MS. of Scott's paper on...

Absence from home has prevented me from sooner thanking you for your kind present of your several publications. I procured some time ago your "Organbilding" (759/1. "Organbildun...

(474/1. Mr. Galton had written on November 7th, 1872, offering to send to various parts of Africa Darwin's printed list of questions intended to guide observers on expression. M...

I am very much obliged to you for having taken the trouble to answer my query so fully. I can now be at rest, for from what you say and from what little I remember Forbes said,...

would like to have any book I have published, such as my "Journal of Researches" or the "Origin," I should esteem it a compliment to be allowed to send it. Will you permit me to...

I have been greatly interested by Scott's paper. I probably overrate it from caring for the subject, but it certainly seems to me one of the very most remarkable memoirs on such...

hermaphrodite except with mutual copulation; in terrestrial plants in which the semen is dry there are many hermaphrodites. Indeed, I do wish I lived at Kew, or at least so that...

I have just returned home after an absence of a week, and your letter was not forwarded to me; I mention this to account for my apparent discourtesy in not having sooner thanked...

I have had a letter from Fritz Muller suggesting a novel and very curious explanation of certain plants producing two sets of anthers of different colour. This has set me on fir...

(431/1. "The Variation of Animals and Plants" having been published on January 30th, 1868, Mr. Darwin notes in his diary that on February 4th he "Began on Man and Sexual Selecti...

I take the liberty, at the suggestion of Dr. Royle, of forwarding to you a few seeds, which have been found under very singular circumstances. They have been sent to me by Mr. W...

Your most agreeable praise of my book is enough to turn my head; I am really surprised at it, but shall swallow it with very much gusto... (558/1. "Geological Observations in S....

With respect to the great subject to which you refer in your P.S., I always try to banish it from my mind as insoluble; but if I were circumstanced as you are, no doubt it would...

Thanks for your pleasant note, which told me much news, and upon the whole good, of yourselves. You will be awfully busy for a time, but I write now to say that if you think it...

I thank you most sincerely for your kind letter and your offer of assistance to Dr. Ferrier. There is at present no subscription list, as the British Medical Association have ta...

(776/1. This letter refers to a movement set on foot at a meeting held at the Freemasons' Tavern, on November 16th, 1872, of which an account is given in the "Times" of November...

(405/1. Mr. Wallace was, we believe, the first to treat the evolution of Man in any detail from the point of view of Natural Selection, namely, in a paper in the "Anthropologica...

(710/1. The following letters to Sir J.D. Hooker and the late Mr. Moggridge refer to Moggridge's observation that seeds stored in the nest of the ant Atta at Mentone do not germ...

Many thanks for the five kinds of seeds; all have germinated, and the Cassia seedlings have interested me much, and I daresay that I shall find something curious in the other pl...

Many thanks for your kind and pleasant letter. I have been much interested by "Deep-sea Soundings,", and will return it by this post, or as soon as I have copied a few sentences...

I cannot aid you much, or at all. I should think that no one could have thought on the modification of species without thinking of representative species. But I feel sure that n...

I am very much obliged for the MS., which I return. I do not quite understand from your note whether you have struck out all on this point in your paper: I much hope not; if you...

Wyman, Jeffries (1814-74): graduated at Harvard in 1833, and afterwards entered the Medical College at Boston, receiving the M.D. degree in 1837. In 1847 Wyman was appointed Her...

I have only read about fifty pages of your book (to the Judges) (410/1. "Hereditary Genius: an Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences," by Francis Galton, London, 1869. "The Jud...

I have been greatly interested by Mimosa albida, on which I have been working hard. Whilst your memory is pretty fresh, I want to ask a question. When this plant was most sensit...

(723/1. The following letter refers to Darwin's prediction as to the manner in which Hedychium (Zinziberaceae) is fertilised. Sir J.D. Hooker seems to have made inquiries in Ind...

I am going to beg a very very great favour of you: it is to translate one page (and the title) of either Danish or Swedish or some such language. I know not to whom else to appl...

I have had a letter to-day from Mr. Charles Darwin, beseeching me to obtain for him a copy of your paper on Glen Roy. (519/1. No doubt Mr. Milne's paper "On the Parallel Roads o...

I thank you sincerely for the trouble which you have taken in sending me so long and interesting a letter, together with the specimens. Gradations are always very valuable, and...

(618/1. The following is part of Letter 144, Volume I. It refers to reviews of "Fertilisation of Orchids" in the "Gardeners' Chronicle," 1862, pages 789, 863, 910, and in the "N...

When I went yesterday I had not received to-day's "Nature," and I thought that your lecture was finished. (733/2. Abstract of a lecture on "Evolution of Nerves and Nervo-Systems...

What a good kind heart you have got. You cannot tell how your letter has pleased me. I will write to Scott and ask him if he chooses to go out and risk engagement. If he will no...

I am particularly obliged to you for your observations on the stridulation of the two sexes of Lamellicorns. (432/1. We are unable to find any mention of F. Muller's observation...

You well know how credulous I am, and therefore you will not be surprised at my believing the Raspberry story (579/1. This probably refers to Lindley's story of the germination...

Many thanks for your paper. (522/1. "On the Ancient Glaciers of Forfarshire." "Proc. Geol. Soc." Volume III., page 337, 1840.) I do admire your zeal on a subject on which you ar...

In scarlet dwarf Pelargonium, you will find occasionally an additional and abnormal stamen on opposite and lower side of flower. Now the pollen of this one occasional short stam...

As usual, I am going to beg for information. Can you tell me whether any Fringillidae or Sylviadae erect their feathers when frightened or enraged? (469/1. See "Expression of th...

(400/1. The following letters are interesting not only for their own sake, but because they tell the history of the last of Mr. Darwin's publications--his letter to "Nature" on...

I had become, before my nine weeks' horrid interruption of all work, extremely interested in sexual selection, and was making fair progress. In truth it has vexed me much to fin...

Your letter is very valuable to me, and in every way very kind. I will not inflict a long answer, but only answer your queries. There are breeds (viz. Hamburg) in which both sex...

With respect to the minor points of Glen Roy, I cannot feel easy with a mere barrier of ice; there is so much sloping, stratified detritus in the valleys. I remember that you so...

Many thanks for your pleasant and very amusing letter. You have been treated shamefully by Etty and me, but now that I know the facts, the sentence seems to me quite clear. Neve...

I have been glad to see the enclosed and return it. It seems to me very cool in Agassiz to doubt the recent upheaval of Patagonia, without having visited any part; and he entire...

I have seen a good deal of French geologists and palaeontologists lately, and there are many whom I should like to put on the R.S. Foreign List, such as D'Archiac, Prevost, and...

As Hooker is so busy, I should be very much obliged if you could give me the name of the enclosed poor specimen of Cassia. I want much to know its name, as its power of movement...

I write now to beg a favour. I do not in the least know what others have guaranteed in relation to Dr. Ferrier. (771/1. In a letter dated November 27th, 1881, Sir Lauder Brunton...

(650/1. Darwin's interest in Scott's Primula work is shown by the following extracts from a letter to Hooker of January 24th, 1864, written, therefore, before the paper was read...

Your view seems most ingenious and probable; but ascertain in a good many cases that the nectar is actually within the staminal tube. (701/1. It seems that Darwin did not know t...

Hearty thanks for your note. I am so glad that your tour answered so splendidly. My poor patients (613/1. Mrs. Darwin and one of her sons, both recovering from scarlet fever.) g...

I beg a million pardons. Abuse me to any degree, but forgive me: it is all an illusion (but almost excusable) about the bees. (614/1. H. Muller, "Fertilisation of Flowers," page...

Many thanks for capsules. I would give table of the Auricula (647/1. In Scott's paper ("Linn. Soc. Journ." VIII.) many experiments on the Auricula are recorded.), especially owi...

Dr. Hooker has forwarded to me your letter as the best and simplest plan of explaining affairs. I am sincerely grieved to hear of the pecuniary problem which you have undergone,...

I am much obliged for your clear and distinct answers to my questions. I am sorry to trouble you, but there is one point which I do not fully understand. Did the shell remain at...

I must write one line to thank you for your very kind letter, and to say that, after despatching my last note, it suddenly occurred to me that I had been rude in calling one of...

(550/1. Mr. Lankester had written October 11th, 1881, to thank Mr. Darwin for the present of the Earthworm book. He asks whether Darwin knows of "any experiments on the influenc...

...When you next write to your son, will you please remember me kindly to him and give him my best thanks for his note? I had the pleasure yesterday of reading a letter from him...

I am much obliged for your interesting letter. I am glad to hear that you are looking to other ears, and will visit the Zoological Gardens. Under these circumstances it would be...

If you are well and have leisure, will you kindly give me one bit of information: Does Ophrys arachnites occur in the Isle of Wight? or do the intermediate forms, which are said...

I wrote to Tyndall, but had no clear answer, and have now written to him again about odours. (468/1. Dr. Ogle's work on the Sense of Smell ("Medico-Chirurgical Trans." LIII., pa...

The next time you walk round the garden ask Mr. Smith (737/1. Probably John Smith (1798-1888), for some years Curator, Royal Gardens, Kew.), or any of your best men, what they t...

(573/1. This letter shows the difficulty which the inscription for Sir Charles Lyell's memorial gave his friends. The existing inscription is, "Charles Lyell...Author of 'The Pr...

I must write a line to cry peccavi. I have seen the action in Ophrys exactly as you describe, and am thoroughly ashamed of my inaccuracy. (695/1. See "Fertilisation of Orchids,"...

I have had real pleasure in signing Dyer's certificate. (755/1. As a candidate for the Royal Society.) It was very kind in you to write to me about the Orchideae, for it has ple...

(572/1. The following letter was written before Mr. Darwin knew that Sir Charles Lyell was to be buried in Westminster Abbey, a memorial which thoroughly satisfied him. See "Lif...

It is the greatest possible satisfaction to a man nearly at the close of his career to believe that he has aided or stimulated an able and energetic fellow-worker in the noble c...

I have heard with much interest that your son, Dr. Hooker, is a candidate for the Botanical Chair at Edinburgh. From my former attendance at that University, I am aware how impo...

Many thanks for your splendid long letter. But first for business. Please look carefully at the enclosed specimen of Dicentra thalictriformis, and throw away. (668/1. Dicentra t...

Shortly after you left I found my notice of the seeds in the "Gardeners' Chronicle," which please return hereafter, as I have no other copy. (761/1. "Note on the Achenia of Pumi...

I am much obliged for your essay, which I have read with the greatest interest. With respect to the geological part, I have long wished to see the evidence collected on the time...

Our notes have crossed on the road. I know it is an honour to have a paper in the "Transactions," and I am much obliged to you for proposing it, but I should greatly prefer to p...

I wrote a little time ago asking you an odd question about elephants, and now I am going to ask you an odder. I hope that you will not think me an intolerable bore. It is most i...

Many thanks. I am glad that you mentioned the linnet, for I had much difficulty in persuading myself that the crimson breast could be due to change in the old feathers, as the b...

(604/1. It was in the autumn of 1861 that Darwin made up his mind to publish his Orchid work as a book, rather than as a paper in the Linnean Society's "Journal." (604/2. See "L...

Since writing to you before, I have read your admirable memoir on Salvia (670/1. "Pringsheim's Jahrbucher," Volume IV., 1866.), and it has interested me almost as much as when I...

It was very kind of you to send me two numbers of the "Gardeners' Chronicle" with your two articles, which I have read with much interest. (753/1. "Gardeners' Chronicle," 1879,...

(493/2. Tahiti (Society Islands) is coloured blue in the map showing the distribution of the different kinds of reefs in "The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs," Edition...

(731/1. The following extract from a letter to Romanes refers to Francis Darwin's paper, "Experiments on the Nutrition of Drosera rotundifolia." "Linn. Soc. Journ." [1878], publ...

You can confer a real service on a good man, John Scott, the writer of the enclosed letter, by reading it and giving me your opinion. I assure [you] John Scott is a truly remark...

Your letter is quite invaluable, for Nageli's essay (698/1. See preceding Letter.) is so clever that it will, and indeed I know it has produced a great effect; so that I shall d...

One line to thank you much about Mertensia. The former plant has begun to make new leaves, to my great surprise, so that I shall be now well supplied. We have worked so well wit...

I was glad to get your note, and wanted to hear about your work. I have been looking to see it advertised; it has been a long task. I had, before your return from Scotland, dete...

(591/1. The following letters are given here rather than in chronological order, as bearing on the Leschenaultia problem. The latter part of Letter 591 refers to the cleistogami...

Here is a piece of presumption! I must think that you are mistaken in ranking Hab[enaria] chlorantha (611/1. In Hooker's "Students' Flora," 1884, page 395, H. chlorantha is give...

I received the Jermyn Street programme, but have hardly yet considered it, for I was all day on the sofa on Tuesday and Wednesday. Bad though I was, I thought with constant plea...

One word to thank you. I declare, had it not been for your kindness, we should have broken down. As it is we have made out clearly that with some plants (chiefly succulent) the...

(779/1. The following letter was written to the author (under the pseudonym of Gapitche) of a pamphlet entitled "Quelques mots sur l'Eternite du Corps Humaine" (Nice, 1880). Mr....

...While writing a few pages on the northern alpine forms of plants on the Java mountains I wanted a few cases to refer to like Teneriffe, where there are no northern forms and...

I don't know when I have read a book so interesting (559/1. "A Second Visit to the United States of North America." 2 volumes, London, 1849.); some of your stories are very rich...

You once offered me a Combretum. (667/1. The two forms of shoot in C. argenteum are described in "Climbing Plants," page 41.) I having C. purpureum, out of modesty like an ass r...

I received about a fortnight ago your second letter on climbing plants, dated August 31st. It has greatly interested me, and it corrects and fills up a great hiatus in my paper....

I am investigating the action of carbonate of ammonia on chlorophyll, which makes me want the plants in my list. (765/1. "The Action of Carbonate of Ammonia on Chlorophyll Bodie...

I quite forget what I said about my geological works, but the papers referred to in your letter are the right ones. I enclose a list with those which are certainly not worth tra...

Do you remember calling my attention to certain flowers in the truss of Pelargoniums not being true, or not having the dark shade on the two upper petals? I believe it was Lady...

of the dioecious Rhamnus and your own of Valeriana to the existence of two forms with larger and smaller flowers. I cannot follow the steps by which such plants have been render...

Thanks for your note of the 5th. You think much and greatly too much of me and my doings; but this is pleasant, for you have represented for many years the whole great public to...

Many thanks about Limulus. I am going to ask another favour, but I do not want to trouble you to answer it by letter. When the Callithrix sciureus screams violently, does it wri...

How good you have been about the plants; but indeed I did not intend you to write about Drosophyllum, though I shall be very glad to have a specimen. Experiments on other plants...

(451/1. On October 4th, 1868, Mr. Wallace wrote again on the same subject without adding anything of importance to his arguments of September 27th. We give his final remarks:--)

I am much obliged to you for having sent me your Address, which has interested me greatly. I quite subscribe to what you say about Mr. Bagehot's striking remark, and wish I had...

I am much obliged for your note and for the essay which you have sent me. I am a poor german scholar, and your german is difficult; but I think that I understand your meaning, a...

I have been wading through the "Annals and Mag. of N. History." for last ten years, and have been interested by several papers, chiefly, however, translations; but none have int...

Some little time ago Mr. Simon (778/1. Now Sir John Simon) sent me the last Report, and your statements about contagion deeply interested me. By the way, if you see Mr. Simon, a...

Your letter has made me as proud and conceited as ten peacocks. (768/2. This may perhaps refer to Darwin being elected the only honorary member of the Physiological Society, a f...

(691/1. The following extract from a letter to F. Muller shows what was the nature of Darwin's interest in the effect of carbonate of ammonia on roots, etc. He was, we think, wr...

species of Phyllanthus, a weed in Muller's garden. See Letter 687.) I am writing this note away from my home, but before I left I had the satisfaction of seeing Phyllanthus slee...

Your letter is quite splenditious. I am greatly tempted, but shall, I hope, refrain from using some of your remarks in my chapter on Classification. It is very true what you say...

Your kind note and specimens have been forwarded to me here, where I am staying at my son's house for a fortnight's complete rest, which I required from rather too hard work. Fo...

How very kind it was of you to telegraph to me. I am quite delighted that you have got a decided result. Is it not a very remarkable fact? It seems so to me, in my ignorance. I...

I thank you very sincerely for your kind present of your "First Principles." (775/1. "This must have been the second edition." (Note by Mr. Spencer.)) I earnestly hope that befo...

I have only one criticism of a general nature, and I am not sure that other geologists would agree with me. You repeatedly speak as if the pouring out of lava, etc., from volcan...

(677/1. The following refers to the curious case of Eschscholtzia described in "Cross and Self-Fertilisation," pages 343-4. The offspring of English plants after growing for two...

I must write two or three lines to thank you cordially for your very handsome and very interesting review of my last book in "Kosmos," which I have this minute finished. (744/1....

I am very much obliged for your courteous and kind note. The fact which you communicate is quite new to me, and as I was laughed at about the tips to human ears, I should like t...

Forgive me for troubling you with one line. Since writing my P.S. I have read the part on the influence of the nervous system on the nutrition of parts in your last edition of P...

Geniuses jump. I have just procured formic acid to try whether its vapour or minute drops will delay germination of fresh seeds; trying others at same time for comparison. But I...

I write merely to thank you for the abstract of the Etna paper. (490/1. "On the Structure of Lavas which have Consolidated on Steep Slopes, with Remarks on the Mode of Origin of...

I thank you cordially for the continuation of your fine work on the Tyrolese Dolomites (534/1. "Dolomitriffe Sudtirols und Venetiens": Wien, 1878.), with its striking engravings...

Lyell tells me that Binney has published in Proceedings of Manchester Society a paper trying to show that Coal plants must have grown in very marine marshes. (555/1. "On the Ori...

(665/1. Mr. Huxley had doubted the accuracy of observations on Catasetum published in the "Fertilisation of Orchids." In what formed the postscript to the following letter, Darw...

I am much obliged for your letter received this morning. I write now chiefly to give myself the pleasure of telling you how cordially I admire the last part of your book, which...

I want any and all plants of Hoya examined to see if any imperfect flowers like the one enclosed can be found, and if so to send them to me, per post, damp. But I especially wan...

I am sorry to say that I cannot give you the least aid, as I have never attended to any mechanical subjects. I should doubt whether it would be possible to train birds to fly in...

...I wrote some little time ago about Rhexia; since then I have been carefully watching and experimenting on another genus, Monochaetum; and I find that the pistil is first bent...

I should be much obliged if you could without much trouble send me seeds of any heterostyled herbaceous plants (i.e. a species which would flower soon), as it would be easy work...

I thank you for your very interesting letter, and I honour you for your laborious and careful experiments. No one knows till he tries how many unexpected obstacles arise in subj...

The President, Mr. Bentham, I presume, was so much struck by your paper that he sent me a message to know whether you would like to be elected an associate. As only one is elect...

I cannot explain why, but to me it would be an infinite satisfaction to believe that mankind will progress to such a pitch that we should [look] back at [ourselves] as mere Barb...

I have been at those confounded Melastomads again; throwing good money (i.e. time) after bad. Do you remember telling me you could see no nectar in your Rhexia? well, I can find...

I was delighted to receive your letter, which was forwarded here to me. I am very glad to hear about the new edition of the "Principles," (557/1. The seventh edition of the "Pri...

S.H. Miller and S.B.J. Skertchly, London, 1878.) The conclusions of Mr. Skertchly as to the pre-Glacial age of the flint implements were not accepted by some authorities. (See c...

(582/1. This is an early example of Darwin's interest in the movements of plants. Sleeping plants, as is well-known, may acquire a rhythmic movement differing from their natural...

explanation of n[itrate] of soda beds and the saliferous crust, which I saw and examined at Iquique. (492/3. "On the Geology of Bolivia and Southern Peru," by D. Forbes, "Quart....

(672/1. In Darwin's book on Climbing Plants, 1875 (672/2. First given as a paper before the Linnean Society, and published in the "Linn. Soc. Journ." Volume IX.,), he wrote (pag...

I shall send him my S. American volume for it is curious on how many similar points we enter, and I modestly hope it may be a half-oz. weight towards his conversion to better vi...

Absence from home has prevented me from answering you sooner. I should think that the capsule of Acropera had better be left till it shows some signs of opening, as our object i...

I have just heard that some misfortune has befallen you, and that you have been treated shamefully. (749/1. Hermann Muller was accused by the Ultramontane party of introducing i...

I have now finished your book, and have read it with great interest. (476/1. "Influence of the Mind upon the Body. Designed to elucidate the Power of the Imagination." 1872.)

Do you remember the scarlet Leschenaultia formosa with the sticky margin outside the indusium? Well, this is the stigma--at least, I find the pollen-tubes here penetrate and now...

R. Soc. Edinb." Volume IX., page 1, 1823.), in which the writers concluded that the roads were the shore-lines of lakes which once filled the Lochaber valleys. Towards the end o...

Calculation of the Age of the Earth, based upon the hypothesis of the Permanence of Oceans and Continents." "Geol. Mag." Volume X., page 309, 1883.) It appears to me almost mons...

I think you have set yourself a new, very interesting, and difficult line of research. As far as I know, no one has carefully observed the structure of insects in relation to fl...

I am very much obliged for your answers, though few in number (October 5th), about expression. I was especially glad to hear about shrugging the shoulders. You say that an old n...

I find that it is no use going on with my experiments on the evil effects of water on bloom-divested leaves. Either I erred in the early autumn or summer in some incomprehensibl...

I am very sorry to hear that the vapour experiments have failed; but nothing could be better, as it seems to me, than your plan of enclosing a number of the ants with the seeds....

I am now busy in drawing up an account of ten years' experiments in the growth and fertility of plants raised from crossed and self-fertilised flowers. It is really wonderful wh...

Patagonia; climate of old Tertiary period, page 134. The subject which has been most fertile in my mind is the discussion from page 135 to end of chapter on the accumulation of...

(394/1. "Written in acknowledgment of a copy of a paper (published by me in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society") on the Hemiptera of St. Helena, but discussing the origi...

this almost shows he is not fit for the subject, as he gives me no idea what his book will be, excepting that the printed paper shows that all animals and all plants of all grou...

You must not suppose from my delay that I have not been much interested by your long letter. I write now merely to thank you, and just to say that probably you are right on all...

Your letter is a mine of wealth, but first I must scold you: I cannot abide to hear you abuse yourself, even in joke, and call yourself a stupid dog. You, in fact, thus abuse me...

Many thanks about the Primula. I see that I was pretty right about the ovules. I have been thinking that the apparent opening at the chalaza end must have been withering or perh...

Tell Hooker I feel greatly aggrieved by him: I went to the Royal Society to see him for once in the chair of the Royal, to admire his dignity and enjoy it, and lo and behold, he...

I thank you sincerely for your kindness in having sent me your work on the "Immigration of the Norwegian Flora," which has interested me in the highest degree. Your view, suppor...

described the valleys as having been filled with lakes dammed back by glaciers which formed bars across the valleys of Glen Roy, Glen Spean, and the other glens in which the hil...

I am very sorry your papers on climbing plants never reached you. They must be lost, but I put the stamps on myself and I am sure they were right. I despatched on the 20th all t...

Man," I., page 316, a passage to the effect that the colours of the mollusca do not in general appear to be protective. Mr. Morse goes on to give instances of protective colorat...

I have often puzzled over Dana's case, in itself and in relation to the trains of S. American volcanoes of different heights in action at the same time (page 605, Volume V. "Geo...

I wrote to him [Dr. H. Cruger, of Trinidad] to ask him to observe what the insects did in the flowers of Melastomaceae: he says not proper season yet, but that on one species a...

Your letter has interested me greatly, as have so many during many past years. I thought that you would not object to my publishing in "Nature" (688/1. "Nature," March 3rd, 1881...

You are perfectly right. (531/1. Prof. Prestwich's paper on Glen Roy was published in the "Phil. Trans. R. Soc." for 1879, page 663.) As soon as I read Mr. Jamieson's article on...

you could have finished America, and thus have allowed yourself rather more time for the old "Principles"; and I am quite surprised that you could possibly have worked your own...

I am working away on some points in vegetable physiology, but though they interest me and my son, yet they have none of the fascination which the fertilisation of flowers posses...

It is, I believe, true that Glen Roy shelves (I remember your Indian letter) were formed by glacial lakes. I persuaded Mr. Jamieson, an excellent observer, to go and observe the...

shown by terraces, page 19; length on W. coast, page 53; height at Valparaiso, page 32; number of periods of rest at Coquimbo, page 49; elevation within Human period near Lima g...

Your two notes and remarks are of the utmost value, and I am greatly obliged to you for your criticism on the term. "Morphological" seems quite just, but I do not see how I can...

I am much obliged to you for having sent me your two interesting papers, and for the kind writing on the cover. I am very glad to have my error corrected about the protective co...

I am much obliged for your kind note, and the present of your essay. I have read it with great interest, and the results are certainly most surprising. (545/1. Presidential Addr...

226)--great subsidence. I think (page 232) there is some novelty in discussion on axes of eruption and injection. (page 247) Continuous volcanic action in the Cordillera. I thin...

I think the enclosed is worth your reading. I am smashed to atoms about Glen Roy. My paper was one long gigantic blunder from beginning to end. Eheu! Eheu! (524/1. See "Life and...

I. Vulcanicity and Earth-movements.--II. Ice-action.--III. The Parallel Roads of Glen Roy.--IV. Coral Reefs, Fossil and Recent.--V. Cleavage and Foliation.--VI. Age of the World...

I am uncommonly much obliged to you for your address, which I had not expected to see so soon, and which I have read with great interest. (562/1. Anniversary Address of the Pres...

(669/1. The following is interesting, as containing a foreshadowing of the chemotaxis of antherozoids which was shown to exist by Pfeffer in 1881: see "Untersuchungen aus dem bo...