The Secretary to the First Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Works thanks CD for providing the funds for a new edition of Steudel’s Nomenclator [Index Kewensis].

Sends a translation of Aristotle’s De partibus animalium and imagines that if the old teleologist were alive CD would convince him of his errors.

Thanks WO for gift of his translation [Aristotle’s De partibus animalium]. Suspects the introduction would interest him more than the text "notwithstanding that he [Aristotle] was such a wonderful old fellow".

Trying to get some Darwinians into the Institut de France.

Politics at Kew led to a letter of thanks to CD from the First Commissioner for his gift.

Thanks for Earthworms.

Sends preferred address.

CD sends cheque for £250 [see 13620].

Has just read CD’s book on worms and is finding tower-like worm-casts, as CD described, in Alpes-Maritimes. Relates case of garden worms and moles.

Suggests that the tendency of the left arm to move with the right leg (and vice versa) during walking is a rudiment of quadrupedal locomotion and thus bears on the descent of man.

Asks GHD to send a copy of his "paper on the moon" [probably Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 171 (1880): 713–891] to V. O. Kovalevsky.

Returns CD’s letter concerning testimonial fund for Grant Allen.

JS is proposing to write a detailed history of the polled Aberdeen breed of cattle [James Macdonald and James Sinclair, History of polled Aberdeen or Angus cattle (1882)] and would be grateful for any instances of hornless breeds known to CD; in particular asks his opinion on the cause of the peculiarity.

Sends a letter [missing] from a Mr Moorhouse on lapwing behaviour that makes earthworms rise to surface.

Writes of his work and a paper accepted for publication in the Philosophical Transactions [? "Stresses caused in the interior of the earth", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 173 (1883): 187–230].

Gives news of friends.

Has sent Kovalevsky his major paper on the moon’s motion, with references to others.

Encloses letter from R. S. Ball [missing], who has placed reliance on Samuel Haughton’s wild speculations.

Has heard that J. Challis’s health is worse.

Are the animal and vegetable kingdoms so united as to be indistinguishable?

Requests CD to sent a cheque for the succession duty on Erasmus Alvey Darwin’s estate.

Reports observations on curious cats that appear to be cat–rabbit hybrids.

Dismisses report of cat–rabbit hybrid.