Thanks CD for subscribing to the Cybele Hibernica.

Reports some observations made on the common buffaloes of India seen swimming and diving in 12ft of floodwater in order to crop the herbage beneath.

Sends copies of the Field containing all the pigeon articles [see 4785].

Luke Wells will undertake engravings for Variation.

University has at last provided room for a small zoological museum. The Philosophical Society might donate its collections to it, including CD’s fishes.

He encloses a portrait and asks for one of CD.

He has sent mimetic paper to B. D. Walsh.

Mentions work at Royal Geographical Society on N. Pole business [plans for an Arctic expedition, eventually postponed until 1875–6].

It is Bos arni which dives for herbage and in so doing it also swallows many freshwater shrimps.

WBT’s eye is getting on very well.

Enclosure comments on a note to folio 1 [of CD’s MS on variation], WBT thinks his works not worth citing: his edition of the Poultry book was never completed and Profitable poultry is out of print.

Reforms at Kew.

X Club Dinner. H. B. Wilson and J. W. Colenso as guests.

Troubled by Lubbock’s going into Parliament – loss to science.

Has written to Busk.

Sending Botanische Zeitung.

MS [of CD’s pigeon chapter] arrived safely.

Pigeon and poultry engravings [for Variation].

Comments on CD’s Lythrum paper [Collected papers 2: 106–31]

and on H. Crüger’s orchid paper [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 127–35].

May take position at Calcutta Botanic Garden.

Regrets he cannot be elected to Linnean Society.

Pleased Asa Gray has commented on JS’s paper.

Supports Atlantis hypothesis.

W. J. Hooker is unwell.

Bentham wrote on Planchon ["The ancient and modern floras of Montpellier", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1865): 202–25],

T. Thomson on subspecies ["Species and subspecies", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1865): 226–42]

and Greene of York on ["The Linnean Society’s transactions", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1865): 189–202].

JDH did the leader in Gardeners’ Chronicle [(1865): 267–8, 291–2].

Delighted with CD’s calm opinion of Origin. Has same view of some of his own papers.

Pleased at CD’s opinion of Thomson’s article.

Non-reading is great fault of the best school of English scientific men.

Opposed to Lubbock’s going into Parliament.

W. J. Burchell’s collections are coming to Kew.

Wonders whether CD might contribute, if possible, an occasional letter to the Reader to help in their effort to establish the journal.

Sends CD the first volume of her Life of Josiah Wedgwood [2 vols. (1865–6)].

Has heard from Hooker that CD is very ill and asking for suggestion of a doctor to consult. Recommends A. B. Garrod as specialist in gouty complaints.

Sends Catalogue [of the collection of fossils in the Museum of Practical Geology (1865)], most of which was written in pre-Darwinian epoch [i.e., 1857].

Hears magnum opus [Variation] completely developed, though not yet born.

On FitzRoy’s suicide.

The Lyell–Ramsay disagreement [on formation of lakes?].

Reports on the funeral of Robert FitzRoy.

His own health has deteriorated and he must give up his work.

CD and ED bequeath an annuity of £50 to J. Parslow [the Darwins’ butler].

Reports Lincoln’s murder.

The end of Civil War is in sight.

Must look at dimorphism in Plantago.