Sends an example of natural selection: survival of water-buffalo eating Indian corn submerged by flooding might depend on how long animal could keep nose under water. Encloses measurements of this behaviour.

Thanks for CD’s support for [Epping Forest] appointment. Doubts about the proposed management.

Forwards a copy of the Student’s Magazine, which contains the first of a series of articles on CD and his work.

Thanks EBA for the copy of the Student’s Magazine.

Thanks CD for his efforts to get HM’s book, Die Befruchtung der Blumen [1873], translated into English. [See Fertilisation of flowers, translated by D’Arcy W. Thompson, preface by C. Darwin (1883).]

Will soon return to his observations on insects in general and bees in particular.