R. I. Murchison’s address [see 4595] smashes Ramsay’s glacial theory.

JDH defends his view that CD should not answer Kölliker.

Pleased that Bentham is cautious about Naudin’s view of reversion. CD can show experimentally that crossing of races and species tends to bring back ancient characters.

Suggests Gärtner’s Bastarderzeugung [1849] be translated

and that Oliver review Scott’s Primula paper [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 78–126] for a future issue of Natural History Review.

Is working on Variation.

Rejoices that CD is beginning "the book of books", Variation.

Suggests that changes in colour of pollen, stigma, and corolla, as Scott reports in his Primula paper, may be related to changes in the insects required for pollination.

Supports Gärtner translation by Ray Society.

Comments on recent addresses by Lyell [Rep. BAAS 34 (1864): lx–lxxv], Bentham [Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. 8 (1864): ix–xxiii], and Murchison [Rep. BAAS 34 (1864): 130–6].

Reports on personalities at the Bath meeting of BAAS [Sept 1864].

Sends Nepenthes laevis.

Wallace for the Royal Medal is a good thought.

W. H. Harvey is at Kew and JDH has asked him about desert climbers.

Huxley has answered Kölliker in Natural History Review [(1864): 566–80].

CD is correcting two of Scott’s papers; is convinced primrose and cowslip are two good species.

Morphological differences only partly define species; physiological differences, e.g., incompatibility results in Primula, are far more interesting.

T. Thomson’s review of Agardh’s muddled book ["Agardh’s classification of plants", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1864): 536–51].

To Lyell’s chagrin, CD has come round again to A. C. Ramsay’s glacial theory.

On primrose and cowslip, CD maintains they are good species, notwithstanding Scott’s work.

CD defines species by power of remaining constant for a good long time and showing appreciable amount of difference from close species.

Comments at length on Ramsay’s glacial paper ["On the erosion of valleys and lakes", Philos. Mag. 4th ser. 28 (1864): 293–311]. Prefers it to Tyndall, but unconvinced about sea action and unwilling to grant that ice power sculptures the totality of landscape.

Unwilling to support Wallace for Royal Medal.

Herbert Spencer’s noisy vacuity.

Garden varieties that are constant and infertile with parent deserve to be called species.

Scott ineligible to be Linnean Society associate because he is not in England.

George Busk’s incoherent talk on Gibraltar cave fossils.

Asks JDH to verify an observation on Dicentra – what CD thought was a branch in the young plant now looks like a gigantic leaf in the old.

Concurs on Spencer’s clever emptiness.

Ramsay exaggerates role of ice. Sorry to hear that Tyndall grows dogmatic.

Admits difficulty of making case for Wallace’s Royal Medal at this time.

Will soon finish the first draft of Variation.

JDH’s "shock" that CD was awarded the Copley Medal.

Oliver, Thomson and JDH independently concur mature tendrils of Dicentra are foliar, though JDH remembers they were axial in the spring. Expects he and CD were fooled, but will have to look again next spring.

Praises CD’s Lythrum paper [Collected papers 2: 106–31].

JDH completing F. Boott’s work on Carex [Illustrations of the genus Carex].

JDH now does suspect Mrs Boott is illegitimate daughter of Dr Erasmus Darwin [see 4389].

CD’s Lythrum paper has given him as much satisfaction as working out complemental males in cirripedes.

Response to award of Copley Medal.

Letters from Germany and France support natural selection.

Now that climbing plants are done, CD asks for Drosera.

JDH is making inquiries for CD on temperate climbing plants.

Discusses politics of Royal Society Council in awarding CD the Copley Medal.

CD pleased with Huxley for defending him against Sabine. Also pleased with much of Sabine’s address. Is sure JDH wrote the botanical part.

Suggests James Hector observe which insects visit endemic New Zealand plants

and JDH examine distribution of white vs coloured corollas in New Zealand.

Has found incipient stages of adhesive discs in Hanburia tendrils.

Huxley was probably right to have challenged Sabine, but the poor old man is sick.

CD remembers the old Disraeli novel [Tancred (1847)] that sneers at transmutation.

J. H. Balfour gives Scott excellent character reference, but says he is unfit either to superintend or be subordinate.

Herbert Spencer’s review of J. M. Schleiden is interesting [see 4457].

CD’s photograph looks like J. R. Herbert’s Moses in the fresco in the House of Lords.

JDH is delighted about oxlip, but hybridity does not explain some large patches that are uniform and do not vary towards either cowslip or primrose.

Encloses letter from W. H. Harvey discussing Myosotis sylvatica and the common dandelion.

Recounts row at the Royal Society over exclusion of mention of Origin from Sabine’s address awarding Copley Medal to CD.

Encloses two letters to JDH from James Hector in New Zealand.

John Scott is gratified at Bentham’s proposal that he become an associate of the Linnean Society.

Request for plants.

CD’s continuing ill health.