(733/1. Published in the "Life of Romanes," page 62.)

Down, August 10th [1877].

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," delivered at the Royal
Institution, May 25th, 1877. "Nature," July 19th, August 2nd, August
9th, 1877.) This final part is one of the grandest essays which I ever
read.

It was very foolish of me to demur to your lines of conveyance like the
threads in muslin (733/3. "Nature," August 2nd, page 271.), knowing how
you have considered the subject: but still I must confess I cannot feel
quite easy. Everyone, I suppose, thinks on what he has himself seen, and
with Drosera, a bit of meat put on any one gland on its disc causes
all the surrounding tentacles to bend to this point, and here there can
hardly be differentiated lines of conveyance. It seems to me that the
tentacles probably bend to that point wherever a molecular wave strikes
them, which passes through the cellular tissue with equal ease in all
directions in this particular case. (733/4. Speaking generally, the
transmission takes place more readily in the longitudinal direction than
across the leaf: see "Insectivorous Plants," page 239.) But what a fine
case that of the Aurelia is! (733/5. Aurelia aurita, one of the medusae.
"Nature," pages 269-71.)

LETTER 734. TO W. THISELTON-DYER. 6, Queen Anne Street [December 1876].

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 was not there. My outing gave me much
satisfaction, and I was particularly glad to see Mr. Bentham, and to see
him looking so wonderfully well and young. I saw lots of people, and it
has not done me a penny's worth of harm, though I could not get to sleep
till nearly four o'clock.

LETTER 735. TO D. OLIVER. Down, October, 13th [1876?].

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 (thinking it a case of mere variation);
from that day to this I have several times looked, but never saw the
second form till it arrived from Kew. Virtue is never its own reward:
I took paper this summer to write to you to ask you to send me flowers,
[so] that I might beg plants of this Linum, if you had