Sends notes on left- and right-handedness from observations made on his eldest son as an infant.

Open letter with multiple signatories pleading with the President of France not to exile Élisée Reclus.

Refers to priest who believes in "our ape-like progenitors".

EH’s work on sponges.

Pangenesis.

Describes new edition of Origin [6th]

and his work on plant crossing.

His admiration for the papers of AG [see 8119].

Relates his recent discovery that earthworms have brought to surface no less than 161 tons of dry earth over an area of 10 acres, thus creating the conditions for significant denudation. Would welcome information about the persistence of ridges and furrows in old pasture lands ploughed centuries ago. Do they run down the slopes or transversely? Refers to [A. C.] Ramsay, [James] Croll, Elie de Beaumont, and [Henry] Johnson.

Is obliged for valuable letter [see 8123] and encloses queries about the manner of gradual obliteration of ridges or furrows in old pasture lands in various parts of England.

Gives details of his experiment to test his observations of the downward flow of worm-casts.

Refers to [Lyon] Playfair, [A. C.] Ramsay, and AG’s edition of [J. B.] Jukes, [A student’s manual of geology, 3d ed., 1872].

Sends MS chapter on voice from Expression to HL for examination.

Agrees with R. B. Litchfield about Herbert Spencer’s views on speech and music.

Sends a copy of Orchids for his wife, T. M. Story-Maskelyne, and a few other items she may wish to have.

Climbing Plants may be purchased at Williams and Norgate; he has no clean copies.

Asks FW to thank F. P. Cobbe for her liberal offer, but the differences [between Descent and Cobbe’s review "Darwinism in morals", Theol. Rev. 33 (1871): 167–92] are too fundamental to be reconciled.

Sends MS of section on voice as a means of expression [Expression, pp. 86–93]. CD is dissatisfied with it – wishes he could avoid the subject.