Thanks for copy of CD’s latest book [Variation].

European converts to CD’s theory.

Congratulations on George Darwin’s success at Cambridge

and CD’s world-wide reputation.

Notes on the taxonomy of Primula.

On the proportion of sexes in crabs; coloration and structural differences.

Corrections [incorporated in 2d issue of Variation].

Suggests, if further notice is to be taken of Variation, that the reviewer grapple with the subject of Pangenesis. Thanks him for his fair and friendly spirit.

Amazed that Hugo von Mohl and E. M. Fries are not foreign members of Royal Society; Thomson going over the whole matter.

Candolle’s contribution to botany.

Lubbock shocked about Wollaston.

CD’s answer to Greg was capital.

Comments on Variation.

Charles Murchison’s work on Falconer’s Memoirs [Palaeontological memoirs and notes of the late Hugh Falconer (1868)] and JDH on Falconer.

Thanks CD for the gift of his new work [Variation].

Questions arising in German translation of Variation; its sales prospects. CD from the first has said it was very doubtful that the book was worth translating.

Thanks WL for sending congratulations [on George Darwin’s attaining Second Wrangler].

Relays news about Sedgwick’s condition.

Has finished a large book on variation.

Comments on Wollaston’s troubles

and his book [Coleoptera Hesperidum (1867)].

Mohl’s claim to foreign membership in Royal Society very strong.

Has been in despair about Variation – not worth a fifth part of the labour it cost him.

Is reading F. A. W. Miquel’s Flora du Japon [Prolusio florae Japonicae (1866–7)]; wonders whether A. Murray could be correct in his view that an area of the sea prevented Asiatico-Japan flora colonising western N. America.

Comments on A. Murray’s book [Geographical distribution of mammals (1866)].

His Majesty the King of Prussia has conferred upon CD the Order, Pour le Mérite, for Sciences and Arts.

Congratulates [G. H. Darwin] on being Second Wrangler.

Thanks CD for Variation.

Sends some Australian boiled beef for CD to sample.

Congratulations on George Darwin’s success at Cambridge.

Discussion of the pig in light of CD’s Variation.

Work of Hermann von Nathusius [Die Racen des Schweines (1860)].

CD appreciates the honour of being elected an Honorary Member of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society.

Forwards a letter from John Horner of Market Drayton, Shropshire, concerning £2000 he considers due to him from CD under the terms of the will of Sarah Bayley.

Thanks for congratulations on Francis Darwin’s success in the tripos examinations at the university of Cambridge.

The king of Prussia has awarded him the order Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste.

Describes his lectures on CD’s theory.

Thanks CD for copy of Variation. Comments on book.

Describes work of two protégés in Jena: Nicolas von Miklucho[-Maclay] and Anton Dohrn.

His cousin, Wilhelm Bleek, is sending an article about the origin of language.

Asks to keep book a few months longer but will return it if CD needs it [Webb and Berthelot, Histoire naturelle des Îles Canaries, vol. 3, pt 1: Géographie botanique (1840)].

Describes research on Siphonophora.

Describes life in Jena. Mentions alpine accident during wedding trip.

Delighted to hear of success of EH’s lectures.

Ernest Faivre [La variabilité des espèces (1868)] sees no reason to favour common descent of allied species.

Asks EH to pass German edition of Variation on to Gegenbaur.

Comments on work of Miklucho[-Maclay], Dohrn, and Bleek.

Has begun work on Descent.