Discusses his new microscope.

Hopes CD will come to lunch on Saturday. The Busks and J. D. Hooker are with JL.

Has forwarded a diploma from the University of Breslau [Honorary Doctorate in Medicine and Surgery].

Acknowledges receipt of a diploma for Doctor’s degree from the University of Breslau and expresses his thanks.

Discusses WED’s growing interest in botany; would be grateful for certain observations.

Is much concerned about Horace’s illness.

Has sent Orchids MS to printers

and will work a little at dimorphism.

Floral structure of Melastoma. Asks AG to observe position of pistils in lately-opened flowers of different plants.

Thanks for Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63].

Separation of sexes in Billbergia.

Offers to experiment under CD’s direction, now that he has retired from Kew.

In his paper for Geological Society ["Glacial origin of certain lakes", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 185–204] he will prove that all the lake-basins of the Alps were scooped out by glaciers.

Discusses politics in the U. S. and relations between Britain and America.

Variation in Mollusca. The most abundant forms vary most.

Would like to hear ACR’s new views on origin of mountain lakes, but cannot stand the hot, late meetings [at Geological Society].

Reports on a bird, offspring of a male mule between a canary and greenfinch, and a hen canary.

Family news.

Box of Melastomataceae has arrived.

Talked with [Duke of] Argyll about Origin. He is between stools: Owen and Lyell.

Cites case of Owen’s getting compiler’s name removed from title of a British Museum catalogue.

Has heard of mules of canary and other finches breeding occasionally, but it is rare, and there is hardly one authenticated case of two such mules breeding together.

Sixteen of the household at Down are sick with influenza.

Admires JDH’s paper on Arctic plants ["Distribution of Arctic plants", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 251–348]. Such papers compel people to reflect on modification of species;

JDH will be driven to a cooled globe.

Serious erratum in paper.

New and original evidence in case of Greenland. Its flora requires accidental means of transport by ice and currents.

Obliged for MTM’s ["Vegetable morphology", Br. & Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev. 29 (1862): 202–18].

Writes that [Murray’s] terms are very favourable; has never heard of such terms offered for a first work. HWB can depend on fact that Murray is pleased with it [The naturalist on the river Amazons].

Pleased at CD’s opinion of his Arctic plants paper. CD has caught great blunder.

Lack of Arctic–Asiatic species in mountains of tropical Asia does not trouble him. Species seem to indicate some "current of migration" from Europe and W. Asia southeastward to Ceylon – an awful staggerer to bridge migrations.

Thanks for information on domestic animals of Indians.

Glad Murray thinks well of MS of The naturalist on the river Amazons.

CD working on proofs of Orchids.