Cites case of Owen’s getting compiler’s name removed from title of a British Museum catalogue.

Has heard of mules of canary and other finches breeding occasionally, but it is rare, and there is hardly one authenticated case of two such mules breeding together.

Sixteen of the household at Down are sick with influenza.

Admires JDH’s paper on Arctic plants ["Distribution of Arctic plants", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 251–348]. Such papers compel people to reflect on modification of species;

JDH will be driven to a cooled globe.

Serious erratum in paper.

New and original evidence in case of Greenland. Its flora requires accidental means of transport by ice and currents.

Obliged for MTM’s ["Vegetable morphology", Br. & Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev. 29 (1862): 202–18].

Writes that [Murray’s] terms are very favourable; has never heard of such terms offered for a first work. HWB can depend on fact that Murray is pleased with it [The naturalist on the river Amazons].

Pleased at CD’s opinion of his Arctic plants paper. CD has caught great blunder.

Lack of Arctic–Asiatic species in mountains of tropical Asia does not trouble him. Species seem to indicate some "current of migration" from Europe and W. Asia southeastward to Ceylon – an awful staggerer to bridge migrations.

Thanks for information on domestic animals of Indians.

Glad Murray thinks well of MS of The naturalist on the river Amazons.

CD working on proofs of Orchids.

Suggests that the height of the water which formed the shelves in Glen Roy was determined not by the height of the blocking glacier but by the height of a col. Notes problems in the idea.

Will experiment on hollyhocks as CD suggests.

On desirability of a place for experiments to be set up by Government or a scientific society. Kew is too busy for experiments.

Had it not been for CD, JDH would never have written such papers as his one on Arctic flora. The "evulgation" of CD’s views is the purest pleasure he derives from them.

He too is staggered that Greenland ought to have been depopulated during the glacial period. Absence of Caltha is fatal to its re-population by chance migration.

GEH, a tailor, wishes to trade some work for a presentation copy of the Origin.

Has directed Murray to send Harris a copy of Origin.

Will observe Rhexia for CD to see whether it is dimorphic.

CD wishes he could sympathise with Asa Gray’s politics.

Orchids to appear soon.

Pre-glacial Arctic distribution.

Work on floral dimorphism.

High opinion of Buckle as a writer.

Returns Asa Gray’s letter. Disappointed with Gray. Comments on America. British–American relations.

Pleased that new German edition of Origin is wanted. Wishes to make corrections.

Suggests German translation of Orchids.

Comments on HGB’s book [Untersuchungen (1858)].

Informs CD where, at Kew, to find Epipactis palustris.

Has never trusted Donald Beaton.

Thinks JDH is a bit hard on Asa Gray.

Bates’s letter is that of a true thinker. Asks to see JDH’s to Bates. Point raised in it is most difficult. "There is one clear line of distinction; – when many parts of structure as in woodpecker show distinct adaptation to external bodies, it is preposterous to attribute them to effect of climate etc. – but when a single point, alone, as a hooked seed, it is conceivable that it may thus have arisen." His study of orchids shows nearly all parts of the flower co-adapted for fertilisation by insects and therefore the result of natural selection. Mormodes ignea "is a prodigy of adaptation".

Gives some observations on changes in pistil position with age in Monochaetum. Asks whether AG can observe Rhexia for similar movements.

"One of the best men, though at present unknown", H. W. Bates, has taken up natural selection.

JDH has probably influenced Bates by pointing out applicability of CD’s views to his cases.

Is greatly puzzled by difference in effect of external conditions on individual animals and plants. Cannot conceive that climate could affect even such a single character as a hooked seed.

Does not think Huxley is right about "saltus".