Waiting for frost to go so experiments can start again.

Frank’s reasons for not accepting the Cambridge Examinership.

CD makes progress with barnacles. Describes "supplemental" males in detail. In working out metamorphosis, their crustacean homologies followed automatically.

CD opposes appending first describer’s name to specific name.

At work on Movement in plants.

Discusses John Ball’s, G. de Saporta’s, and his own theories of higher plant origin. Their rapid development remains an "abominable mystery".

Frank is working in Würzburg.

Searching for the right gardener.

Will get in touch with young gardener about terms of employment. It is good of Hooker to remember about heliotropism of insectivorous plants.

Wants some seeds to see how certain seedlings break through ground.

Wants seedling of Quercus rubra or Q. coccinea.

Movement of cotton plant cotyledons.

Thanks JDH for his praise of Erasmus Darwin.

Delighted that JDH is thinking about geographical distribution, wishes he would go over the New Zealand flora again.

CD’s health and his father’s death have delayed his answer. Describes J. M. Gully’s water-cure.

JDH’s Galapagos papers [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 20 (1851): 163–233] have excellent discussion of geographical distribution, but why no general treatment of affinities?

CD’s views on clay-slate laminae.

Turmoil in Royal Society between naturalists and physicists.

Miss Arabella Buckley’s letter on Wallace’s poor health and finances leads CD to seek JDH’s aid in getting a Government pension.

JDH convinces CD not to press for pension for Wallace.

Does not recommend that JDH publish extracts of his letters from India in the Athenæum.

CD criticises JDH’s observations on glacial deposits in Himalayas as insufficiently clear and detailed.

CD will live to finish barnacles and make a fool of himself over species.

CD thinks great dam across Yangma valley is a lateral glacial moraine.

Reports on Birmingham BAAS meeting.

Details of water-cure.

Barnacles becoming tedious; careful description shows slight differences constitute varieties, not species.

Lamination of gneiss.

Admires Wallace’s Island life.

Criticises: 1. His view of similar plants on distant mountains – CD prefers previous low-land connections to Wallace’s summit–summit dispersal;

2. Source of warmth for ancient Arctic climate;

3. Origin of S. Australian flora.

CD’s favourite cases in Movement in plants.

Wants to see Frank become F.R.S. before he dies.

Pities Wallace and wants a pension for him very much.

Responds, with some embarrassment, to JDH’s caution on Frank’s F.R.S. prospects.

Thanks for agreeing to propose Frank as F.R.S.

Would have enjoyed discussing Island life.

On Wallace’s pension and Frank’s F.R.S.

Letter of introduction for V. O. Kovalevsky.