Has confirmed CD’s observations on Drosera.

Asks whether CD agrees that it is "no longer a fact" that the bladders of Utricularia vulgaris enable the plant to become lighter for fecundation and heavier when that act is accomplished. Plans to undertake further observations, under very high-powered microscopes, of mechanism of digestion.

Bug on Tilia, cited in Variation, was Cimex apterus.

Two photographs of T. W. Clarke, Jr, aged three, offered as examples of expression.

Sends copy of Arabische Korallen [1876].

Comments on reception of his paper on "Gastrula" [see 10012].

Has sent his paper on Echinoidea [see 10373] as a token of his veneration. He tried to address the confusion in knowledge about the different parts of the exoskeleton of the Echinodermata by tracing certain relations of homology not previously noticed. Much more work is required.

Reports on the tendency of the normally fruitless Convolvulus arvensis, to form fruit when roots are cut and plant is in danger of dying.

Reports an observation on his child’s behaviour;

claims to have captured two moths of different species in the act of copulating with each other.

Proposes an unorthodox theory of generation that explains sex determination and atavism.

[The black-balling of Edwin Ray Lankester by the Linnean Society] is a most scandalous shame. Will arrange for his own admission to fellowship of the Society.

Are plants that arise from vegetative propagation individuals or merely parts of the original parent plant?

He is surveying the literature on the struggle for existence among pasture plants. Asks CD for the "many cases on record" of changed relations among plants under slightly changed conditions alluded to in the Origin. [See M. T. Masters, J. B. Lawes and J. M. Gilbert "Agricultural, botanical, and chemical results of experiments on the mixed herbage of permanent meadow, conducted for more than twenty years in succession on the same land (pt 2, The botanical results)", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 173 (1883): 1181–413.]

Purchases cigarettes for CD.

In response to CD’s query, answers that he has frequently heard discussions at the Horticultural Society of a saccharine secretion from leaves of the lime and has no doubt it really does occur. [See Cross and self-fertilisation, p. 402.]

Asks CD to come up to vote for Lankester.

Severely critical of R. L. Tait’s paper on Nepenthes communicated to the Royal Society.

Thanks CD for comments on Arabische Korallen [1876].

Comments on Monoenia darwinii [?] as a primitive sponge.

Discusses criticisms of CD’s theory by K. E. von Baer ["Über Darwin’s Lehre", in Reden 2 (1876): 235–480].

Tells CD of his engagement to Louisa, eldest daughter of Lord Claud Hamilton.

His investigations [into spontaneous generation] continue. He will deal with Bastian’s work [The modes of origin of lowest organisms (1871)].

The medical journals see that the end of the nonsense they have so long countenanced is nigh.

JT will not quit the subject [of spontaneous generation] until light is let in on every cranny of the question.

The teapot is exquisite. Louisa says to say "the gift is worthy of the giver. Nothing higher can be said."

Thanks CD for letter complimenting her book. Responds to his comments on botany and geology in book.

Inquires whether insectivorous habit in plants supplements or replaces the normal method of plant nutrition.