Asks for address of the artist who drew the sections exhibited by WBC at BAAS meeting in September. CD needs drawings of minute corallines, Articulata, and Mollusca.

Arranges to meet with WBC to get his advice about buying a microscope.

Asks WBC for his vote and influence in favour of Albert Dicey at the Athenaeum balloting.

CD feels "as old as Methusalem".

Asks WBC to plant some kidney beans [on Holy Island near Arran] and to see whether they are ever visited by bees. If no bees visit the island, it would be "curious" to observe what plants grow there.

Comments on WBC’s response to the Origin. Hopes he will review it. Acceptance will depend more on men like WBC, with well-established reputations, than on his own writings.

"Lyell thinks the chapter on the Imperfection of the Geological Record not exaggerated."

Asks to hear WBC’s conclusion about the Origin when he has read it all. Knows only one believer so far – J. D. Hooker. Sometimes feels frightened that he may be a monomaniac.

Delighted by WBC’s letter about Origin. There is now "a great physiologist on our side". "You have done me an essential kindness in checking the odium theologicum in the E[dinburgh] R[eview] … immaterial whether we go quite the same lengths … the principle is everything."

WBC’s review [of Origin, Natl Rev. 10 (1860): 188–214] will do great good. It "turns the flanks of theological opposers" capitally.

Asks for information about cuckoo eggs and West Indian sheep.

Comments enthusiastically on WBC’s review ["The theory of development in nature", Br. & Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev. 25 (1860): 367–404].

Must defer WBC’s visit, owing to daughter’s illness.

Comments on response to the Origin. Has been "well pitched into", but cares little, because of support of men like WBC.

Asks for specimen [of Eozoon] for J. V. Carus of Leipzig.

Thanks WBC for offer to examine specimen and for offer of slices of shells, but has no achromatic microscope.

Asks WBC if he will examine a specimen of calcareous rock.

Is obliged for the account of the structure of the Pampas specimen and its difference from specimens of the modern calcareous bed of Coquimbo in Chile. If he thinks that J. S. Bowerbank can make out the nature of the specimens, they should be shown to him.

Writes of his extreme interest in WBC’s article ["On the hereditary transmission of acquired psychical habits", Contemp. Rev. 21 (1873): 779–95].

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