Will introduce Charles Kingsley to CD.

More comments on "Insular floras": community of peculiar genera in the Atlantic islands descended from European plants now extinct.

Requests information about rudimentary muscles and organs in man. Asks about marrow of os coccyx, and about testes and ovaria in early embryos of both sexes.

Approves of type [for Variation]. Pleased to hear from Hooker that he is not surprised that MS is big.

Comments on MS on seed distribution sent by TB.

Thanks BJS for W. H. Stirling’s answers [to queries about expression]

and for information on cattle and breeding of dogs.

JL’s brother-in-law [Robert Birkbeck] would like a note of introduction to John Murray.

Encloses note of introduction to Murray.

Wynne [gardener] suggests he should be paid from the money from the sale of the Mount, but EAD suggests an annual subscription instead.

Asks CD questions relating to the revised translation of Origin.

Seeks explanation of the case of the Rhynchaea, of which the female is more beautiful than the male, with the young resembling the latter. Wallace has told CD that at Nottingham AN explained this by the male being the incubator.

Does the male black Australian swan, or the black and white S. American swan, differ from the female in colour of plumage?

His view of CD’s hypothesis that Atlantic island genera are descended from extinct European plants.

On recent instalment of "Insular floras" in Gardeners’ Chronicle [(1867): 50]. Approves of JDH’s abstract of argument for transport of species [i.e., migration, as opposed to continental extension hypothesis].

Suggests that, in some birds, plumage of males is less colourful than that of females; the reason is that the males perform the duties of incubation [see Descent 2: 204 n.].

Answers JVC’s questions about the rock-thrush, the tortoise-shell cat, and the logger-headed duck.

Position as Curator allows no time for experiment.

Describes plans for vast new layout of Calcutta Botanic Garden according to natural orders.

Himalayan and Scottish plants are doing well.

Hopes to experiment on temperate plants in tropics, to test CD’s views of migration during glacial periods.

Sends observations on acclimatisation of English cultivated plants.

Leersia CD sent are growing and fertile.

Thanks for the information about the male plumage. [See 5374.] Will look to the papers in Ibis to which AN has referred him. He finds AN’s theory captivating.

Would like Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel’s photograph, but JDH should give CD’s address to FAWM.

Thanks for letter and glad Frances Harriet Hooker goes on well.

Do not send St Helena earth.

Describes progress in preparation of third German edition of the Origin. Asks about use of photograph for edition.

Encloses letter written a week ago. Letter and enclosure speculate on origins of human races in relation to geological and political changes, according to a theory of progressive development.

Was sorry CD wrote so little on man in Origin.