Writes as a trustee of the Down Friendly Society. Hopes the Society will soon be permitted to distribute its surplus funds, as there is agitation to dissolve the club and divide its assets.

GHD’s article will not do. It is too long and the denial seems weak and confused; also, it ought to be in the form of a letter to the editor. Encloses draft of the sort of letter of denial he thinks GHD should write.

Thanks JDH for his and Huxley’s countering of the false attack on George [Darwin] by Mivart. Encloses a note to Mivart on which he asks JDH’s opinion.

Does not think that publishing his letters as advertisement [for potato experiments] would help JT’s cause, so CD cannot give permission.

Regrets that he has neither the time nor health to undertake crossing experiments with JT’s specimens. Discusses crossing varieties.

Sends £25 subscription, though he is not a churchman.

Thinks it would be a serious mistake for TB to give up his profession. How the Royal Society will distribute funds is as yet very uncertain, and CD feels that TB may well receive no support as his proposal is too theoretical.

Pleased that a Grace has been submitted to confer on CD an honorary LL.D.; hopes his health will permit him to attend the ceremony.

CD asks his father to consider the offer of the Beagle voyage once more. He encloses his list of RWD’s objections and Josiah Wedgwood’s responses [see 109]. Asks his father to give him a decided answer: if "no" he will never again mention the subject.

Thanks RLT for his work, Diseases of women.

CD is also interested by RLT’s letter reporting a cat rearing chickens. "What a wonderful instinct is the maternal one."

Discusses David Milne’s Glen Roy paper ["On the parallel roads of Lochaber", Trans. R. Soc. Edinburgh 16 (1849): 395–418]. Rejects Milne’s theory that outlet of Glen Roy is blocked by detritus. Impressed by Milne’s discovery of an outlet at the level of the second shelf. Believes this strengthens theory that lakes were formed by glacier blocking Glen Roy. Offers arguments against glacier theory.

Pleased the Senate has passed Grace conferring his LL.D.

James Caird does not think Torbitt’s success justifies application to Government. Torbitt has four acres planted with seedlings. Has sent back CD’s £100. Shall CD insist that he keep it?

Sends an enclosure [a statement of CD’s finances and estimate of the inheritance his children may expect] for HD and Ida to read; CD very pleased to be able to leave his children comfortably provided for.

Receiving deputation gave CD pleasure.

Questions on variation in nature: taxa varying in one region but not another. Variation between vs within species. Rarity of variation in important organs within a species. G. R. Waterhouse’s views on variation in highly developed organs, which CD relates to variation in rudimentary organs.

Asks for cases of obligate self-fertilising plants.

[CD annotation proposes using the Steudel Nomenclator botanicus (1821–4) to determine if variable species occur in genera with many species.]

Representative species may complicate tabulation of varieties.

Questions for Mr Anderson about horse colouring in Norway.

Has been writing an "audacious little discussion" to show that "organic beings are not perfect, only perfect enough to struggle with their competitors".

Hermaphrodite trees are enough to "knock" CD down. Can JDH observe Eucalyptus to see whether pollen and stigma mature at same time?

JDH’s facts showing European plants are more common in southern Australia than in South America are disturbing because they are improbable on CD’s views of migration.

JDH said he would give examples of Australian forms that have migrated north along the mountains of the Malay Archipelago.

Replies at length to JDH’s worried reaction to his comments on lowness of Australian plants. CD distinguishes between "competitive highness", i.e., which fauna would be exterminated and which survive if two faunas were placed in competition, and ordinary "highness" of classification.

Queries on expression among Fuegians and Patagonians.

Sends address.