Congratulates CD on Origin; has been "initiated into an entirely new province of knowledge".

Notes error involving rhinoceros.

Encloses other notes.

MS of a paper called "Comments on Mr Darwin’s grand theory", which generally supports CD but proposes that present flightless birds are primitive. Paper supplemented by a diagram showing the phylogeny of birds.

HW has confirmed the report in the Times of a shower of fish (minnows and sticklebacks) that fell on the Wedgwood colliery.

Responds to CD’s queries concerning faults; is sending sections of the kind he wants. The Merionethshire fault with a downthrow of 12000ft. [See Origin, p. 285.]

Will secure information on indigenous and naturalised bees as CD requests.

Believes Mexican and Jamaican Melipona are different.

Relieved by Wallace’s letter.

At work on introductory essay to Flora Tasmaniae.

European plants naturalised in Australia are almost all adapted to invading disturbed ground.

JDH supports Asa Gray against Alphonse de Candolle as foreign member of Royal Society.

Is sorry to hear of bad health of CD and his daughter.

Discusses, with an example, the difficulty of explaining structural differences between closely allied species.

Serial homologies in the Mollusca. Gives instances of repetition of homological parts in Radiata.

Outlines the basic categories of phanerogams.

Places Gymnospermae in the dicotyledons.

Evaluates the variable utility of embryological characters in plant classification.

Embryology of Diptera. Development of insects; metamorphosis. JL feels all insects go through metamorphosis but that in some of them, part takes place before birth.

Lyell has been strongly urging John Murray to publish CD’s book [Origin]. JDH feels Lyell overestimates the public interest in such works.

Gives examples of plants showing most marked varieties on the edge of their range.

Reports his observations on the habits of slave-making ants (Formica sanguinea).

Praises the Origin: a "splendid case of close reasoning".

Objects to CD’s having ignored Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.

Thinks CD should omit mentioning problem of explaining the eye at the beginning of chapter 14. Suggests rewording several passages.

Thinks want of peculiar birds in Madeira a difficulty, considering presence of them in Galapagos.

Has always felt that the case of man and his races is one and the same with animals and plants.

The antlers of 800 deer of the glacial period have been found in a cave. They show great variety of form, but gradation from one to the other can be traced when all are laid out. Suggests CD study changes that have taken place in the species since glacial period.

Has ordered the wicked book [Origin] CD has been so long a-hatching.

Will judge CD’s book [Origin] free from two superstitions: the dogma of the permanent species and the need of an act of intervention to bring change.

JDH’s congratulations on Origin.

Lyell believes S. P. Woodward wrote review in Athenæum.

Lyell’s and Huxley’s positive responses.

JDH has only plunged into a few chapters.

Believes natural selection will become recognised as an established truth in science, though it will shock the ideas of many men.

Has just finished Origin. CD has demonstrated a true cause for the production of species.

CD has loaded himself with unnecessary difficulty in adopting natura non facit saltum.

Writes of "the Dr’s" [Henry Holland’s] mixed reactions to the book.

Adds a personal opinion, "it is the most interesting book I ever read".

Thanks CD for the Origin; AS has read the book "with more pain than pleasure". CD has deserted "the true method of induction" and many of his wide conclusions are "based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved". His "grand principle – natural selection" is "but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts".