Reports on a setter puppy born of apparently pure pointer parents. Any cross must have been far back.

Sends John Blackwall’s book [Researches in zoology (1834)]. Discusses his reasons for doubting that there are any marsupials in Java or Sumatra.

Sends congratulations on CD’s engagement, with a gift.

Writes to CD as "Brother Benedick" and sends hearty good wishes for health and happiness in marriage. They are sending a little silver candlestick for a wax taper.

Sends his congratulations and best wishes on CD’s marriage.

Has objected to loading Narrative with advertisements, but thinks CD’s Zoology and Geology might be advertised. Mentions other details of the final stages of publication.

Questions on breeding of plants: variation in established versus new varieties; predominance of wild species and old varieties when crossed with newer forms; predominance of males versus females; correlations between ease of hybridisation and tendency to vary and undergo cultivation; reversion; correlations between hybridisation and geographic distribution.

In WH’s Amaryllidaceae [1837], does he intend to say crossing is inimical to fertility?

[Sent via J. S. Henslow; note to amanuensis Syms Covington.]

Sends a book [his translation of Goethe’s Hermann u. Dorothea] as a wedding gift.

[Note forwarding 503.]

Lord Fitzwilliam’s gardener does not believe in hybrid ferns.

Answers to [Questions about breeding].

Has not yet had time to read CD’s Journal of researches attentively. He is sure there is no expression referring to himself personally that he could wish were not in it.

Acknowledges receipt of Journal of researches.

Thanks CD effusively [for Journal of researches] – "the most delightful book in my collection".

Thanks CD for Journal of researches. Praises its "want of pretension"; "the Geology seems … to be excellent – and a good part of it new".

Acknowledges Journal of researches.

Robert Brown has mistreated Capt. P. P. King by holding back for nine years the plants collected on King’s voyage of the Adventure and Beagle.

CD is led to believe there are no true permanently inbreeding, sexually reproducing beings. Thanks for replies to breeding questions.

Asks for clarification of Hippeastrum crosses: is selfing or crossing with individual of same species intended and was increased fertility due to constitution of foreign parent or due to the pollen coming from another plant? Has WH known any hybrid or mongrel to revert or to vary in a manner unlikely to be effect of soil?

Sends Journal of researches.

Rejects necessity of outbreeding and any general law of reversion.

Describes further experiments with Hippeastrum showing greater fertility with foreign pollen than with individual’s own pollen or with pollen from another individual of same species.

Does not believe CD’s questions about reversion can be answered in present state of knowledge.

Acknowledges Journal of researches and in return sends the first volume of his History of British birds [1839–43].

Detailed evidence for and against geological elevation along coast of the Indian subcontinent, South Asia, and Arabia. Extensive references to geological literature about these areas.

Describes coral sand-dune and salt-marsh formation.