Regrets he will not return home in time to see WDW.

Thanks JF for his book.

At present has no observations he wishes made in India.

Will be in London tomorrow and will try to pop over to Kew.

Thanks for GR’s "Address" [see 10141].

Wishes he had not quoted Bagehot’s remark [in Descent 1: 239] about decrease in savage populations. Interest in subject.

Further discussion of the process of aggregation in response to [10137].

CD gives a few instances of various animals (starfish, earwigs, spiders) that take charge of their young.

Sends comments and suggestions for Huth’s experiment on crossbreeding rabbits.

Requesting two books, Lafitau 1724 and Tanner 1830.

Thanks SN for his explanation of vines.

Discusses SN’s observation on roots secreting carbonic acid.

Discusses foliation and cleavage. Comments on dip of cleavage laminae in mountains. Mentions views of Sedgwick and Studer. Suggests reading C. L. von Buch [Travels through Norway and Lapland (1813)] "as an amusement". Praises views of William Hopkins. Suggests reading paper by H. D. Rogers ["On cleavage of slate-strata", Edinburgh New Philos. J. 41 (1846): 422–3)]. Comments on the paper.

Agrees to write to William Ogle [about twins with crooked fingers].

Describes growth of sweetpeas for experiment.

Asks whether the twins WO reported to CD [see 5470] were named Macrae. F. Galton has told him of a similar case with twins so named who inherited crooked little fingers from the maternal side [see Variation, 2d ed., 2: 240]. [The twins referred to by WO were actually his sisters, see 10170.]

Encloses a photograph and [?].

Will propose GJR for membership in Linnean Society.

Discusses GJR’s grafting experiments.

Thinks JGFR should send report of coloured spots on infants’ buttocks to some ethnological society.

CD’s note to Stokes [see 940] has been forwarded to George Grey; CD fears he may be offended. Asks how it could have happened.

Thanks FG for issues of Revue [Scientifique vol. 7, containing lectures by Claude Bernard].

Ogle says twins [with crooked fingers] are his sisters.

Recommends book by M. A. Puvis [De la dégénération des variétés de végétaux (1837)].

From Galton’s "twin study" he suspects that some progenitor of WO’s had the peculiarities in question.

Has collected cases of signs of assent for a revised edition of Expression.

Suggests bees visit same species because they know how far to insert proboscis and thus save time.

CD obliged about the Schrankia

and thanks WTT-D for details of last number of Gardeners’ Chronicle.

Thanks him for his kind review of Insectivorous plants in the Spectator. Disputes Tait’s report of a Nepenthes that trapped a fly but did not digest it.