I have strong and fresh Drosera rotundifolia, and it will now turn in its bristles and stick the viscid gland fast to a fly, binding him fast on all sides with liliputian cords. But it is awfully slow about it,--say three or four hours, and the next day the leaf sometimes becomes involute and folds over or curves around the insect; but what good? If the fly is not stuck fast in alighting, no movement takes place to hold him till he has got away if he ever could. However, it is an indication of what is so effectually done in Dionæa. Rotary movement of end of tendril-bearing stems is common, is it not, and well-known? Any notes you will give me to print in “Silliman’s Journal,” I shall always delight in. I have been reading Owen’s Aye-aye paper. Well, this is rich and cool! Did I not tell you in the “Atlantic,” long ago, that Owen had a transmutation theory of his own! It is your Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet left out! But as you say now, you don’t so much insist on natural selection, if you can only have derivation of species. And Owen goes in for derivation on the largest scale. You may as well lovingly embrace! Oh, it is rare fun!... I have been so far disappointed in getting no Gymnadenia tridentata. But I still hope for it. I must have it, indeed. Boott’s address is good, chiefly very good. But he speaks of Wyman’s paper without having duly considered it. Wyman’s experiments are better than Pasteur’s, and the results opposite! P. S.--Papers just in, or rather telegrams, that you in London were daily awaiting and expecting the capture of Washington, etc., and speculating as to whether Jeff Davis’s envoys from Washington might not be received at London as a fait accompli. A good deal of little-concealed joy, etc. Oh, foolish people! When will you see that there is only one end to all this, and that the North never dreams of any other,--the complete putting down of the rebellion. And since 1863 began, it was clear that it would be attended with the annihilation of slavery. Time was when we should have highly valued English appreciation of the right cause. We have long ceased to care or think about it. We only wish you had the city of New York. But the sympathizers with secession and riot there have done their worst, and lost their game. The city of New York is the only part of our country which I am ashamed of; and the trouble there is that it is not American. Enough; good-bye. A. G. September 1.