Argument, based on geographical distribution and competition, for a mundane glacial period rather than cooling of one longitudinal belt at a time.

Thanks JC for pamphlets.

"I do not believe in Metempsychosis nor in Genesis – & you are growing so orthodox, that you will end your days, I believe, in believing in the Tower of Babel–."

Thanks for information about natural increase of Chillingham cattle. Compares with case in Paraguay.

Asks for information about JC’s essay, "On the relation of the domesticated animals to civilisation" [read at BAAS meeting 1859].

Difficulty of distinguishing varieties and species. Did HCW suggest a printed list that might help?

Polymorphic genera.

Thanks for mentioning J. G. Kurr on nectaries [Untersuchungen über die Bedeutung der Nektarien in den Blumen (1833)]. Requests observations on flowers with curved pistils. Finds they curve toward nectary, thus lying in path of insect.

Comments on JL’s paper ["Notes on the generative organs, and on the formation of the egg in the Annulosa", Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 11 (1860–2): 117–24].

CD’s opinion of minor critics and commentators on Origin.

H. C. Watson’s notion of genera converging is dismissed.

Writes of Henrietta’s illness.

Changes in admission to Athenaeum.

Slowly working at his volume on Variation.

Experiments on insectivorous and "sensitive" plants.

Henrietta’s continuing poor health. JDH’s suggestion to rub her with cod-liver oil.

Asa Gray’s pamphlet.

Ill health.

Sends correspondence between Dr Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood I [of Etruria] on glaciers.

Also a pamphlet [Asa Gray, Natural selection not inconsistent with natural theology (1861)] containing "the best account" of the Origin.

Comments on JL’s Seasons with sea-horses [1861]. Thinks JL bold to defend his bear–whale illustration.

Praise for DO’s paper on Hamamelidaceae ["On Sycopis", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 83–9, read 15 Mar 1860]. Everything points to its being a "bankrupt" family.

Hydropathy at Malvern may take him from Drosera. Requests Dionaea and Cypripedium.

CD expresses his gratification that a geologist of AG’s standing and influence subscribes to the idea of the mutability of species.

Invitation to Down for weekend with Huxley and W. B. Carpenter.

Lieut. F. W. Hutton’s original review [Geologist 4 (1861): 132–6, 183–8] understands that mutability cannot be directly proved.

CD met Bentham at Linnean Society and asked him to write up his views on mutability.

Opinion of Owen.

Conversation with Lyell on antiquity of man.

Henslow is dying.

H. W. Bates’s excellent article against glacial period [Trans. R. Entomol. Soc. Lond. 5 (1860): 352–3] leaves CD "dumbfounded".

H. C. Watson’s hostility.