Declines writing testimonial for AN for the Cambridge Professorship in Zoology. The post requires expertise in comparative anatomy and histology, whereas AN’s work is on habits and colours of birds.

Discusses income provided for sons at Cambridge.

Thanks for correcting Fritz Miller’s paper on climbing plants. CD will send it to Linnean Society.

Encloses letter [from A. R. Wallace?] about the Reader.

Wants his opinion of a letter from Fritz Müller on climbing plants.

Discusses self-fertilisation in bee and spider orchids. Asks JTM to conduct experiment.

Comments on plates [see J. T. Moggridge’s contribution to Flora of Mentone and winter flora of the Riviera, including the coast from Marseilles to Genoa London 1866, 1871. Part II dated 1865; Part I, 1866].

Sends Fritz Müller’s paper ["Notes on some of the climbing plants near Desterro, in S. Brazil", J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 9 (1867): 344–9] to be refereed.

Thinks Royal Society’s failure to honour W. J. Hooker may be due to small number of botanists on Council.

Interest in H. J. Carter’s papers in Annals and Magazine of Natural History on lower organisms.

On Wallace; anthropology.

H. H. Travers’ paper on Chatham Islands [J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. 9 (1865): 135–44].

W. C. Wells’s paper of 1813 ["Essay on dew", Two Essays (1818)] anticipates discovery of natural selection.