CD guessed Carruthers was stirred up by Owen. Disgraceful treatment of Bentham.

Work on Descent and Coral reefs stops his doing anything of real interest.

Asa Gray’s letter. CD has acknowledged the honour [honorary membership in the Boston Soc. Nat. Hist.].

"What a demon on earth Owen is. I do hate him."

On digestive powers of Drosera and those of higher animals.

Comments on expression on two halves of human face.

Responds to TLB’s views of serpent- and fire-worship.

Poison of venomous snakes.

Asks JT to support his nephew, Henry Parker, for election to the Athenaeum.

Asks AN to vote for CD’s nephew, Henry Parker, at the Athenaeum.

Criticises paper by Ziegler [see 9339].

Acid experiments on seeds have failed.

Sends photograph.

Comments on Mme P’s bulldogs.

Cannot answer AN’s questions about Origin; it would take weeks to find the references. Assures AN he stated nothing without an authority he thought good.

Feels sure missel thrushes have increased in number since his youth. Starlings have also increased astonishingly in Kent. "How inexplicable most of these cases are".

In a P.S. remembers his source for statement about increase of missel thrushes in Origin.

Can give no definite information. Believes severe winters are by far the most important check on numbers of birds; the destruction of eggs is of subordinate importance.

Testifies to the trustworthiness of Charles Pearson.

Comments on JS’s lecture on evolution ["Address on evolution", Aberdeen Daily Free Press 24 Feb 1874].

Thanks for information about Hedychium. Hopes wings of Sphinx will be found covered with pollen for that will be a fine bit of prophecy from the structure of a flower to special and new means of fertilisation.

Has been at Descent so hard he has done nothing, not even H. Spencer’s answer.

Has not yet read Croll ["Ocean currents", London Edinburgh & Dublin Philos. Mag. 47 (1874): 94–122, 168–90].

Has heard nothing about Carter and Eozoon. Eozoon, he infers, is done for.

Has read Belt [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1874)]: best of all natural history travel books.

Has written to Fritz Müller about leaf-carrying ants.

Hopes to resume work on Drosera.

Etty [Henrietta Litchfield] is helping with Coral reefs [2d ed.]; will JDH lend her his copy?

Circular requesting recipients to sign an enclosed [missing] statement [relating to appeal for Naples Zoological Station] if they approve of it.

Thanks for JL’s willingness to sell land.

C. V. Riley’s case of Pronuba moth and the fertilisation of Yucca, is the most wonderful case of fertilisation ever published [Am. Nat. 7 (1873): 619–23].

Discusses illustrations for 2d edition of Descent.

"My nephew [Henry Parker] got into the Athenaeum with splendid success."

Is glad to have Descent cheaper and sold more largely, but would be sorry to see it printed like the Origin. "The closeness of the lines is the great fault." Fears book might be very thick. "I hear scores of people complaining of the heavy and thick books which you publish."

CD’s son Francis is to be married, so CD is seeking advice as to how much he should arrange as a marriage-settlement.

Is sorry to hear the news about the cousin question – a real misfortune.

Congratulates GHD on being nearly finished with work on Descent.

F. M. Balfour is in Naples. Comments on rate at which sea eats back the land, as given in early editions of Origin.