Will take Natural History Review, but cannot write for it.

Has mass of notes on irritability in orchids,

but he ought to work on Variation.

Drosera was an interlude while away from home. Expectations for effect of carbonate of ammonia on Dionaea. The important phenomenon in Drosera is the segregation of the red fluid within the leaf, not action of carbonate of ammonia on the red fluid.

Thanks for fact about ducks in Ceylon. Asks for more information.

Pleased by GHKT’s sentence [about Origin].

Thanks RP for communicating the "Rat v. Rabbit case".

Compliments DO on his wealth of information.

Henrietta’s relapse.

Thanks for extract on Drosera.

Has been consulting with John Murray about the possibility of publishing AG’s three Atlantic Monthly articles [see 2910] as a pamphlet, but has been strongly advised against it.

Etty has had a relapse. "What the end will be, we know not."

Concern over Henrietta’s illness.

CD does not mind C. R. Bree’s dull, unvarying abuse and misrepresentation, but when he doubts CD’s deliberate word, "that is the act of a man who has not the soul of a gentleman in him".

JSH’s letter in Athenæum ["Flints in the drift", 20 Oct. 1860, p. 516] is interesting.

H. Freke’s paper [On the origin of species by means of organic affinity (1861)] is beyond CD’s scope.

Comments on interpretation of natural selection in DTA’s Geological gossip [1860].

Testimonial for Daniel Oliver’s candidacy as Professor of Botany [DO was Professor of Botany, University College London, 1861–88].

Talks of getting copies of AG’s Atlantic Monthly articles for distribution in England.

Describes the pollinating mechanisms of Orchis pyramidalis and Spiranthes autumnalis.