books."), and find out how the Laburnum has been behaving: it really ought
to be known.

The Entada is a beast. (48/5. The large seeds of Entada scandens are
occasionally floated across the Atlantic and cast on the shores of
Europe.); I have never differed from you about the growth of a plant in a
new island being a FAR harder trial than transportal, though certainly that
seems hard enough. Indeed I suspect I go even further than you in this
respect; but it is too long a story.

Thank you for the Aristolochia and Viscum cases: what species were they?
I ask, because oddly these two very genera I have seen advanced as
instances (I forget at present by whom, but by good men) in which the
agency of insects was absolutely necessary for impregnation. In our
British dioecious Viscum I suppose it must be necessary. Was there
anything to show that the stigma was ready for pollen in these two cases?
for it seems that there are many cases in which pollen is shed long before
the stigma is ready. As in our Viscum, insects carry, sufficiently
regularly for impregnation, pollen from flower to flower, I should think
that there must be occasional crosses even in an hermaphrodite Viscum. I
have never heard of bees and butterflies, only moths, producing fertile
eggs without copulation.

With respect to the Ray Society, I profited so enormously by its publishing
my Cirrepedia, that I cannot quite agree with you on confining it to
translations; I know not how else I could possibly have published.

I have just sent in my name for 20 pounds to the Linnaean Society, but I
must confess I have done it with heavy groans, whereas I daresay you gave
your 20 pounds like a light-hearted gentleman...