Discusses specimen of Balanus crenatus.

Sorry JP’s children are ill.

Will come to Liverpool if well [for meeting of BAAS].

Sends beetle he cannot identify.

Reading J. O. Westwood [Introduction to the modern classification of insects (1839–40)] has reawakened his passion for entomology.

On individuality.

Huxley’s review exquisite, but too severe on Vestiges; sorry for ridicule of Agassiz’s embryonic fishes.

Stonesfield mammals.

J. O. Westwood deserves Royal Society Medal.

Will begin species work in a few days.

CD writes as the Treasurer of the Down Coal and Clothing Club and the Down Friendly Club, requesting subscriptions.

Congratulates JDH on receipt of Royal Medal.

CD gathering facts on aberrant genera of insects.

Calculating small number of species in aberrant genera of insects and plants.

Joachim Barrande’s "Colonies", Élie de Beaumont’s "lines of Elevation", Forbes’s "Polarity" make CD despair, as these theories lead to conclusions opposite to CD’s from the same classes of facts.

JDH’s "grand speech" on receiving the Royal Medal.

Is Bentham’s list of aberrant genera biased by exclusion of genera with many species?

JDH’s belief that Aquilegia varieties are one species is consistent with their great interfertility.

Debates aberrant species, e.g., Ornithorhynchus and Echidna, with JDH. CD argues they are result of extinction having removed intermediate links to allied forms.

Studying effects of disuse in wings of tame and wild ducks.

Tabulations showing that number of species in a genus is not correlated with number of genera in an order.

Thanks for subscription to Down Coal and Clothing Club, whose finances are improving.

Adds comments to a list of Cape of Good Hope plants which are also European and gives some additions to the list [see Natural selection, p. 552].

Writes of the extension to Down House.

Regrets he cannot help JL; the point [unspecified] was always a trouble to CD also.

Has been to a poultry show.

Asks for the return of a lens.

Discusses WED’s affairs and events at Down.

Writes of the benefits of reading.

Latitude overrules everything in distribution. Alpine distributions are like insular. Tabulating proportions.

T. V. Wollaston’s Madeira insects: many flightless, thus not blown to sea. TVW’s insects do not confirm Forbes’s Atlantis.

Acknowledges a list [of plants?].

Looks forward to new edition [of British plants growing wild in the parish of Hitcham, Suffolk, 2d ed. (1855)].

JSH should not trouble about Anacharis until he is less busy. Will send cirripedes.

Thanks JSH for Anacharis which is flourishing.

P. H. Gosse told him he had several sea animals and algae living in artificial sea-water for over 13 months.

The new pigeon house is nearly complete.

CD is busy trying all sorts of experiments on salting seeds.

CD has begun seed-salting experiments. Wants JDH to write which seeds he expects to be easily killed [in salt water].

CD’s idea that coal-plants lived in salt water like mangroves made JDH savage.

Pea self-fertilisation: has forty-five varieties growing side by side.

Describes seed-salting experiments: e.g., immersion in tank filled with snow. Reports some successful germinations.

Made list of naturalised plants from Asa Gray’s Manual [of Botany] to calculate the proportions of the great families.