Thanks GJR for his review of Earthworms [Nature 24 (1881): 553–6].

Has sent copies [of Earthworms] to Annals & Magazine of Natural History and to Popular Science Review. If W. S. Dallas edits both, he will have two copies.

Further details on sale of property to CD by Sydney Sales.

Arrangements for the disposal of the contents of Erasmus Alvey Darwin’s house at 6 Queen Anne Street, London.

The text on EAD’s gravestone.

Sends text of the gravestone inscription [for E. A. Darwin] and details of arrangements for removal of furniture from Queen Anne St.

Thanks for Earthworms.

HdeV is studying the causes of variation in plants and is very interested in Pangenesis.

Thanks for Earthworms.

Has sent the inscription [for E. A. Darwin’s gravestone]. If CD approves, will he forward it to G. S. ffinden [Vicar of Downe Parish] and William [Darwin].

Thinks CD guilty of mock modesty regarding GJR’s review of Earthworms.

Has been working on echinoderms again with J. C. Ewart.

Has read Earthworms with great interest. Remembers CD once said, laughing, that he was finding that "worms could revolutionise the world". CD has succeeded in proving greatness of their power.

Thanks CD for sending Wallace’s book [see 13313]

and for writing to Hooker about FdeAF’s plants. Has written to Hooker to tell him of the plants he is sending and discuss the subject of the cypress trunks.

Thanks CD for his detailed instructions for suggested experiments.

Thanks CD for a copy of Earthworms.

Requests interview to get CD’s views on stages in evolution of the eye for a talk he is to give at a health congress. [Address to working men & women, 17 December 1881.] in Transactions of the Brighton health congress

Has read Earthworms and suggests, as an architect, that leaf linings protect worm burrow from the worm’s rapid movements.

Has been reading Julius von Wiesner’s book [Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen (1881)]. Comments that it is "an excellent book, but he vivisects me in the most grievous terms, but most effectively".

Has been experimenting on aggregation of chlorophyll but with little success.

Occupied with details of E. A. Darwin’s house and furniture. He has ordered a gravestone.

Thanks for book [Earthworms]. Asks whether leaf-mould is not formed by decay as well as by the agency of worms.

Can think of no suggestion to send to Mrs Forsyth. "The best plan is to read, think and speculate and then some suggestion or doubt will occur which can be determined or verified out of observation."

CD will be figured tomorrow in Punch. The artist, Linley Sambourne, expresses his deep respect.

Delighted to hear that HdeV intends working on the causes of variation.