Testimonial for S. B. J. Skertchly, stating CD’s high opinion of his work.

On instinct in insects. Intends to experiment as CD proposes.

Speculates on origin of habit [of insects?] of laying eggs on plants of certain families.

Nature [21 (1880): 382] has an item about tremors and earth movements in Japan.

Thanks CD for his offer. Suggests it be used to start a fund to pay travel expenses of English naturalists who want to come to the Station.

The debt of plant geography to voyages may be JDH’s topic at BAAS meeting [at Swansea].

Photographs from New Zealand forwarded.

Wishes EAD to sign some road bonds and then forward them to CD so that they may be paid off. [EAD note to CD enclosed, saying he does not know where the money will go.]

Forwards, on behalf of the Birmingham Philosophical Society, an address offering CD the first honorary membership of the Society. Encloses formal record of this meeting.

Plants in Venezuelan plains.

Observations on Turnera: heterostyly, leaf-base glands’ secretion eaten by ants.

Observations on role of leaf secretions in fertilisation of Marcgravia and Passiflora.

Thanks correspondent for a gift of books.

Three hundred copies of Erasmus Darwin remain from the 1000 printed. Demand is small.

Should 250 copies of Forms of flowers be printed before type is distributed?

Potatoes will be lost unless JT has immediate authority to proceed.

Thanks CD for his cheque for £100. Has told Secretary of BAAS Committee [for the Station], so that he may report it. [See O. J. R. Howarth, The British Association (1931), pp. 196–7.]

Thanks for CD’s appreciation of his work on family history. Sends one of his books [unidentified].

Writes on family matters and researches.

Mentions construction of a pendulum

and completion of a paper he will send to the Royal Society.

Going to London today to speak to T. H. Farrer about funds for potato breeding experiments. "I have told Farrer I would subscribe £50."

The Colonel [J. L. Chester] is pleased [see 12509].

Jos[iah Wedgwood III] is dying.

Wonders whether Lord Derby would advance him the money to continue his work.

Is prepared to continue his work, if financial help is forthcoming.

Has sent off paper to the Royal Society

and begun work on a new problem which he feels contains the meaning of Bode’s Law, concerning the mean distances of the planets from the sun. There are mathematical difficulties, however, which he may be unable to surmount.

Will get to work on the pendulum next week.