Pleased the Senate has passed Grace conferring his LL.D.

Sends a query he would like GHD to put to Clerk Maxwell: why does a sponged leaf dry more rapidly, although sponging cannot remove the waxy bloom from the minute pores through which it is secreted?

Is very glad to hear about tides in the earth.

Hooker, just returned from U. S., says Pinus nordmanniana leaves are spread horizontally in the morning and rise during the day.

Hive-bees captured in tubes of nectary of Tritoma. Seems a maladaptation of the bees.

Encloses his marriage present, which he fears Sara [Darwin née Sedgwick] will think "atrociously unsentimental", but he hopes useful.

Thanks CD for present of £300.

Speculates that the function of "bloom" is to prevent evaporation.

Raised CD’s question about the geographical distribution of glaucous plants at recent botanical meeting.

Thanks CD for acknowledging receipt of JDC’s book The antelope and deer of America [1877].

Castration suppresses deer antlers.

Sends article and photograph of abnormally hairy family.

Mentions death of his student, Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm.

Thanks GdeS for communicating his discovery. It is especially important at a time when several naturalists have declared that development occurs quite suddenly at intervals. Joseph Le Conte in N. America urges that even new families and orders are developed within an extremely short period.

Asks whether CD considers it possible that a mollusc could poison anyone on contact, as RD has heard from missionaries about a certain South Sea variety.

Pleased CD is satisfied with translation of Cross and self-fertilisation.

Sends £20 royalties for Insectivorous plants (700 sold).

Gives a possible explanation of exceptions to CD’s observation [Descent, ch. 7] that characters correlated with one sex tend to appear late in life.

Sends notes on expression [missing].

JDH has just returned from U. S., where he worked on N. American geographical distribution with Asa Gray.

Would like to see the Kosmos article.

Is considering producing a translation of August Weismann’s essays.

Comments on Wallace’s paper on the colours of animals and plants [Macmillan’s Magazine 36 (1877): 384–408, 464–71].

Has read JT’s address ["Science and man", The Times, 2 October 1877, p. 8]. What JT says about CD honours and pleases him. JT’s short character of Faraday is beautiful.

JBI reports that the editor of Journal of Horticulture has identified the tree at Loch Carron as Sambucus racemosa, red-berried elder.

Welcomes JDH home from American expedition.

Loss of water from leaf surfaces; action of a still air layer.

Proposal for CD’s LL.D.