Encloses notes concerning his life and list of publications.

Returns the letters about primroses: they contain little that is new. Dr Bree’s is the best.

Discusses digestion by insectivorous plants, asks JSBS to try same experiments using pepsin as the digestive agent to see how the results compare with CD’s observations on digestive power of Drosera.

Requests sewage water (and oleic acid) for experiments to determine sensitivity of leaves [of Drosera].

Thanks him for copy of book [Der Kampf um’s Dasein am Himmel (1874)].

Thanks for the sewage water and the oleic acid. The former does not seem to act.

Descent [2d English ed.] will not be published until November. Will send JVC first sheet of revised proofs soon.

Pleased to hear of success of JVC’s lectures.

Summer plans have changed. Does not yet know when he will take a month’s holiday.

Thanks for note and paper ["Secondary sexual characters in Cheiroptera", Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1873): 241–52].

Has corrected error in new edition of Descent [1874].

Sees nothing strange in geckos inhabiting frost-clad land and having no claws.

CD responds to information about residue of milk digested by Drosera. Is obliged for information on strength of acids and albumen and now has little doubt acid had impaired the leaves. Awaits word on pepsin and papaw juice.

There is no uniform edition of CD’s work.

D. A. Spalding has asked for information to help with his experiments on sense of direction in animals. Has arrived at same results as GHD with blindfolded children. Will GHD let him have his results?

Thanks JSBS for his work. CD concludes the ferment of Drosera must differ from pepsin.

CD has forwarded proofs of Descent [2d edition]. Urges GHD not to work on them if his poor health makes them too tiring.

Thanks GHD about Spalding [i.e., for responding to Spalding’s request, see 9472].

Thanks GdeS for his "Études sur la végétation" [Ann. Sci. Nat. (Bot.) 5th ser. 15 (1872): 277–315]. "Nothing can be more important … than your evidence of the extremely slow and gradual manner in which specific forms change."

Hopes GdeS will shed light on whether polymorphic forms like Rubus and Hieracium are generating new species at present; CD doubts this.

Comments on CL’s planned bequest to science. CD would do the same if he had fewer sons.

Thanks CHM for a report about birds of the United States [see 9461].

CD is deeply pleased by AG’s article on him in Nature [10 (1874): 79–81].

Is preparing book on "Drosera and Co." for the printers. Reports observations on digestion in Drosera and Pinguicula.

Discusses effects of water on movement of insectivorous plants.

Has just found that Pinguicula can digest albumen.

Asa Gray writes that Sarracenia secretes trail of fluid to attract insects [see 9455].

Thanks ID for interesting and curious facts but doubts that he will have time to enter more closely into the subject of the intellect of animals.

Nothing would give CD more "pleasure & interest" than to see ID’s country, "now so great & destined to be so much greater", but he is quite incapable of "so great an exertion as crossing the Atlantic".

Profoundly grateful for AG’s article in Nature; he is especially pleased by what AG says about teleology.

Asks what proportion of leaves of Pinguicula have insects adhering to them. Also, whether seeds of any plants ever adhere to the leaves, and in what situations does P. vulgaris grow.