Thanks for note and paper ["Secondary sexual characters in Cheiroptera", Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1873): 241–52].

Has corrected error in new edition of Descent [1874].

Sees nothing strange in geckos inhabiting frost-clad land and having no claws.

CD responds to information about residue of milk digested by Drosera. Is obliged for information on strength of acids and albumen and now has little doubt acid had impaired the leaves. Awaits word on pepsin and papaw juice.

There is no uniform edition of CD’s work.

D. A. Spalding has asked for information to help with his experiments on sense of direction in animals. Has arrived at same results as GHD with blindfolded children. Will GHD let him have his results?

Thanks JSBS for his work. CD concludes the ferment of Drosera must differ from pepsin.

CD has forwarded proofs of Descent [2d edition]. Urges GHD not to work on them if his poor health makes them too tiring.

Thanks GHD about Spalding [i.e., for responding to Spalding’s request, see 9472].

Thanks GdeS for his "Études sur la végétation" [Ann. Sci. Nat. (Bot.) 5th ser. 15 (1872): 277–315]. "Nothing can be more important … than your evidence of the extremely slow and gradual manner in which specific forms change."

Hopes GdeS will shed light on whether polymorphic forms like Rubus and Hieracium are generating new species at present; CD doubts this.

Comments on CL’s planned bequest to science. CD would do the same if he had fewer sons.

Thanks CHM for a report about birds of the United States [see 9461].

CD is deeply pleased by AG’s article on him in Nature [10 (1874): 79–81].

Is preparing book on "Drosera and Co." for the printers. Reports observations on digestion in Drosera and Pinguicula.

Discusses effects of water on movement of insectivorous plants.

Has just found that Pinguicula can digest albumen.

Asa Gray writes that Sarracenia secretes trail of fluid to attract insects [see 9455].

Thanks ID for interesting and curious facts but doubts that he will have time to enter more closely into the subject of the intellect of animals.

Nothing would give CD more "pleasure & interest" than to see ID’s country, "now so great & destined to be so much greater", but he is quite incapable of "so great an exertion as crossing the Atlantic".

Profoundly grateful for AG’s article in Nature; he is especially pleased by what AG says about teleology.

Asks what proportion of leaves of Pinguicula have insects adhering to them. Also, whether seeds of any plants ever adhere to the leaves, and in what situations does P. vulgaris grow.

Did not know cabbage contained so much nitrogen.

Pinguicula more excited by seeds than Drosera. Asks for information about Pinguicula.

Asks name of weed.

Asks to borrow Utricularia plant.

Comments on GHD’s paper ["Marriages between first cousins in England and their effects", Fortn. Rev. n.s. 18 (1875): 22–41]. Hopes it will be published and read at the Statistical Society.

JSBS’s article in Nature ["Venus’s fly-trap", 10 (1874): 105–7, 127–8] could not have been better done.

Has found another plant, Pinguicula, which can catch and digest flies.

Did not know Duval-Jouve was an evolutionist.

Delighted at JTM’s success with spiders.

On JTM’s experiments with acids on seeds.

Asks JVC if he can provide introductions in Leipzig and Dresden for his son George.

Has not yet received any revised sheets of Descent [2d English ed.].

Asks for living plant of Utricularia and information on Pinguicula lusitanica. Gives notes on habitats.