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.

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].

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.

Will experiment on hollyhocks as CD suggests.

On desirability of a place for experiments to be set up by Government or a scientific society. Kew is too busy for experiments.

Had it not been for CD, JDH would never have written such papers as his one on Arctic flora. The "evulgation" of CD’s views is the purest pleasure he derives from them.

He too is staggered that Greenland ought to have been depopulated during the glacial period. Absence of Caltha is fatal to its re-population by chance migration.

GEH, a tailor, wishes to trade some work for a presentation copy of the Origin.

Will observe Rhexia for CD to see whether it is dimorphic.

CD wishes he could sympathise with Asa Gray’s politics.

Orchids to appear soon.

Pre-glacial Arctic distribution.

Work on floral dimorphism.

High opinion of Buckle as a writer.

Pleased that new German edition of Origin is wanted. Wishes to make corrections.

Suggests German translation of Orchids.

Comments on HGB’s book [Untersuchungen (1858)].

Informs CD where, at Kew, to find Epipactis palustris.

Has never trusted Donald Beaton.

Thinks JDH is a bit hard on Asa Gray.

Bates’s letter is that of a true thinker. Asks to see JDH’s to Bates. Point raised in it is most difficult. "There is one clear line of distinction; – when many parts of structure as in woodpecker show distinct adaptation to external bodies, it is preposterous to attribute them to effect of climate etc. – but when a single point, alone, as a hooked seed, it is conceivable that it may thus have arisen." His study of orchids shows nearly all parts of the flower co-adapted for fertilisation by insects and therefore the result of natural selection. Mormodes ignea "is a prodigy of adaptation".

JDH has probably influenced Bates by pointing out applicability of CD’s views to his cases.

Is greatly puzzled by difference in effect of external conditions on individual animals and plants. Cannot conceive that climate could affect even such a single character as a hooked seed.

Does not think Huxley is right about "saltus".

He has only an uncertain memory of the placement of stamens in the [monstrous?] primrose CD asked about.

On effect of external conditions: CD thinks all variability due to changes in conditions of life because there is more variability under unnatural domestic conditions than under nature, and changed conditions affect the reproductive organs. But why one seedling out of thousands presents some new character transcends the wildest powers of conjecture.

Not shaken by "saltus" – he had examined all cases of normal structure resembling monstrosities which appear per saltum. Has fought his tendency to attribute too much to natural selection; perhaps he has too much conquered it.