Sexual behaviour of fowls.

Describes her compassion for all his sufferings and writes of her wish that his gratitude could be offered to heaven as well as to herself. To her, the only relief is to try to believe that suffering and illness are from God’s hand "to help us to exalt our minds & to look forward with hope to a future state".

Will look for botanical specimens CD requested.

Tells of a kestrel with a broken leg which apparently was forced to change its diet to worms and snails because of the injury.

On his father’s crossing experiments with cacti, in which hybrids were found quite fertile.

On his breeding of guinea-pigs.

Sends Miss E. Watts’s message about crested fowls and Brahmas.

Offers CD a live Proteus anguinus from Adelsberg cave. In his hands it will have a fair chance of developing into "some type of Columbidae (say a pouter or tumbler)".

The Origin is universally praised in Italy and Germany, even by those who disagree with it.

Notes observations on the spread of bees in New Zealand and their importance as pollinators of clover and other introduced plants.

Distribution of varieties and subspecies.

George Maw’s review of the Origin [Zoologist 19 (1861): 7577–611].

Evidence of glacial action in Australia. [See Origin, 4th ed., p. 443.]

CD awarded honorary doctorate of medicine and surgery by the University of Breslau. [See 3194a.]

Thanks CD for his letter about GM’s review of the Origin.

Sends instances of correlative organisation and functions which he finds difficult to believe could have accumulated by gradual modifications.

[Letter erroneously dated 1862 by GM.]

Mention of Volucella.

The embryology of the vertebrate nervous system may be an exception to the law of inheritance at corresponding ages.

Gives some observations on the sensitivity of Drosera species and comments on cases of "dioecio-dimorphism".

The Primula experiments of J. Sidebotham; HCW’s distrust of the results [see J. Sidebotham, "Specific identity of the cowslip and the primrose", Phytologist 3 (1849): 703–5].

Offers to publish Orchids, giving CD one-half of the profits of each edition.

Has found the reference to Charles Morren’s paper, "On the agency of insects in causing sterility in flowers" [Proc. R. Entomol. Soc. Lond. 1 (1836): xliv–xlv].

Common white butterflies remove pollen-masses with their tarsi from plants of the Asclepiadaceae.

List of Australian plants that have become naturalised in the Nilgiris [India] and are turning out the native trees.

Discusses the mimicry of the Volucella flies, and the bees and wasps they mimic. Compares it with the different object of mimicry in butterflies.

Refers to incompleteness of Cuthbert Collingwood’s paper [? "On homophormism, or organic representative forms", Proc. Liverpool Lit. & Philos. Soc. 14 (1860): 181–216].

Thanks CD for help in selecting a publisher for his book [The naturalist on the river Amazons (1863)].

Fancies articles on "The queen bee" and "Drone influence" [J. Hortic. 8 October 1861, p. 39] may be of interest. Since writing the latter, one of his drones hybridised a queen at a distance of a mile and a half.

Refers CD to a paper which he ought to know: Ch. Fermond, "Faits pour servir à l’histoire générale de la fécondation chez les végétaux", Recueil des travaux de la Société d’émulation pour les sciences pharmaceutiques 3 (1859).