Discusses in detail how to prepare for experimental purposes a soil that lacks nutrients.

CD came to believe Drosera drew its nourishment from insects because it grows where no other plants survive. Doubts glands are modified stomata.

Suggests works by Grönland and Trécul.

Sends some cash to help WED with moving expenses.

Thanks for EAS’s paper, translated from its original German, Sur la formation et la division des cellules (Strasburger 1876a).

Sends advice on preparing and washing soil in preparation for CD’s experiments.

Encloses cheque for balance listed on accompanying statement of sales [see 10401].

Stereo plates for new edition of Variation have been sent to New York.

Recounts family trait of excessive orderliness

and the behaviour of his dog.

Insectivorous plants is out

and Climbing plants is at the printer’s.

He is now at work on the geological writings.

Thinks all of CD’s papers extremely interesting "for the spirit and the method".

Cites some misprints in Climbing plants.

"The longer I live the more I come to believe in inheritance. I have some ""orderlings"" in my own composition, and I wish I had transmitted more of it to my own offspring."

Thanks CD for copy of Variation in name of Anthropologische Gesellschaft, Munich.

Dr Born has demonstrated that all Batrachia and their relatives the Anura have six toes.

Sends short paper on intelligence of cephalopods ["Die Cephalopoden in der zoologischen Station des Dr Dohrn", Z. Wiss. Zool. 26 (1876): 1–23].

Thanks for copy of 2d ed. of Variation.

Glad to hear that [German edition of] Insectivorous plants is published.

Thanks for errata in Climbing plants [2d ed.].

Sends list [missing] of his papers, with those certainly not worth translating marked with a red line.

Reports on work in progress.

A difficulty with a passage in Coral reefs about "vertical thickness", which JVC thinks should read "horizontal extent".

Thanks for sending the impressions of the gems, but, because CD is ignorant of archaeology, the recipient should not send one for inspection.

All who battle in the cause of evolution do good service.

Has no questions about the natural history of Bermuda.

Discusses chemical tests for the detection of glucose and cane-sugar in solution.

Clarifies a passage [in Coral reefs, 2d ed. (1874)], which JVC had questioned.

Thanks Naturalist Society and Club of Northampton for his election.

RLT’s two articles in Spectator [4 Mar and 25 Mar 1876] greatly honour CD.

Tait has made a good point about "Survival of the Fittest".

Dr Rudinger’s extensive inquiries show that all eminent German surgeons are unanimous about non-growth of extra digit after amputation.

J. Kollmann has written regretting CD has given up atavism and extra digits [in 2d ed. of Variation]; gives new evidence of a rudimentary sixth digit in batrachians.

Cat born tailless as a consequence of a spina bifida.