Gives directions for sending seeds collected at Hitcham. The Lychnis and Myosotis have come up. Will begin their "torments" next spring [i.e., experiments to produce "sports"].

Thanks for seeds. Feels "almost foiled" in his experiments on sea transport – has found few plants that float after more than a week’s immersion.

Sends a list of queries [see 1779] on hollyhocks to put to growers.

Draft of queries on the varieties of hollyhocks. [To be transmitted to William Chater by JSH; probably enclosed with 1778.]

Specimens being sent off. Describes his collection of rocks, plants, and insects. Some particularly interesting specimens.

Has received the seeds safely.

Sends a book on clubs, which has raised some worrisome questions about the [Down Friendly] Club. Asks JSH’s advice.

Thanks for JSH’s letter, which has been of real use.

Complains of the trouble caused by reports to Government required of Benefit Clubs.

Interested in case of Canada geese with seed in crop, because means of distribution is now a great hobby.

Alphonse de Candolle’s Géographie botanique [raisonnée (1855)] strikes him as a wonderful, admirable work.

Sends a cultivated specimen of Myosotis (first generation) grown from seed sent by JSH. Asks for a tuft of flower.

Hopes JSH will publish a book on teaching botany, because he has no idea how to begin with his children.

A French collector [Alcide d’Orbigny] has been at the Rio Negro and will probably have "taken the cream". CD’s luck with fossil bones, among them a large extinct armadillo-like animal. Describes some birds, toads, Crustacea, and other marine specimens. Nearly all plants flowering at Bahia Blanca were collected. Is sending two large casks of fossil bones by packet.

Reports on results of forcing and other attempts to produce variations in plants. Asks for some seeds.

Is correcting his Linnean Society paper ["On the action of sea-water", Collected papers 1: 264–71].

He is steadily and very hard at work on "Variation" [Natural selection] and finds the whole subject "deeply interesting but horribly perplexed".

Description of the months at Tierra del Fuego. His first sight of the primitive Fuegians. Geological and zoological observations and specimens.

The Falklands: geological and zoological observations.

Convinced the [Megatherium] sent to Royal College of Physicians [by Woodbine Parish] belongs to same formation as bones he sent home.

Fears JSH will think his collections scanty. Makes it a constant rule to prefer obscure and diminutive tribes of animals.

Now has a servant whom he has taught to skin birds, etc.

Lists four barrels of specimens he is sending.

Gives future route. He looks forward to the western coast of South America.

Delighted that JSH is coming to Down. Sends correct train time.

JSH’s Myosotis is beginning to sport. Asks whether some features are not odd.

Sends details on Myosotis sports. Feels sure he could make any flower in some degree monstrous in four or five generations.

Informs JSH that a Spanish friend has offered him a cargo of bones. If they arrive, he has arranged with Edward Lumb to forward them to JSH. [Forwarded to JSH with 244.]

Mrs Henslow’s death stirs reminiscences of happier days.

Is sending a cargo of specimens – birds’ skins, small quadrupeds, and fossil bones.

Describes his overland trip from Rio Negro to Buenos Aires and his expedition to Santa Fé.

Asks for mineralogical works to help him with the volcanic rocks of the west coast.