Pleased at [advance] sale [of Descent]. Suggests 3000 copies be printed. Corrections are frightful and, CD fears, will not be done until end of year.

Sends two sheets [of Descent] for correction of names of birds. PLS will save him many disgraceful misspellings. Descent now being prepared in five foreign editions.

Praise for ARW’s reply [Nature 3 (1870): 49–50] to a paper by A. W. Bennett ["Natural selection from a mathematical point of view", Nature 3 (1870): 30–3] holding that mind is a leading cause of variation.

Is reading proof of his "confounded book" [Descent].

Bran [deerhound puppy] is thriving; enjoys English life.

A recommendation for George Cupples who has applied for a government pension: "I have corresponded with him on scientific subjects during several years. On some very intricate points he has been so kind as not only to collect, at the cost of much trouble, information from various sources, but has likewise made for me valuable observations".

Is pleased to hear that the translator for the Dutch edition [of Descent] is a person so well qualified [see 7384]. He encloses a facsimile of the title page. Reports arrangements with John Murray.

Is sending by this post three sheets and will send another tomorrow thus almost completing the part on birds. His congratulations and thanks for PLS’s labours with them.

Believes AG’s cases of incipient dimorphism are due to mere variability. Has found examples in Nolana and Amsinckia; believes such variation is the basis for the development of dimorphism. Was unaware of variations in Phlox.

Sensitivity of Drosera and Dionaea.

Thanks LGK for the part he played in getting CD elected as an Associate [of Royal Belgian Academy of Sciences].

Thanks Academy for his election as Associate Member.

Thanks WO for valuable letter. Feels he need not trouble any more about platysma. If WO ever sees someone suffering great fear, CD asks him to observe the neck.

Hopes to visit WO when next in London.

Thanks BJS for his congratulations [on Leonard Darwin’s success].

CD is "as usual, always ailing and grumbling".

Expects his new book [Descent] to "disgust you & many others".

Thanks CL for his book [The student’s elements of geology (1871)].

Is correcting proofs [of Descent].

Sending two sheets [of Descent]. About one-and-a-half more will complete PLS’s task.

Regrets that Hartogh Heijs van Zouteveen has already translated his new book into Dutch.

CD is obliged for PLS’s correction [of Descent proofs]. Will add a caption to the woodcut [of the wart-hog] since it is too late to make a new one.

Is sending some books for the Linnean Society Library.

On amount of modification and lines of descent in determining the position in man.

Reference to StGJM’s article "On the appendicular skeleton of the primates" Phil. Trans. R. Soc. [157 (1867): 299–430],

and his [and James Murie’s] article on lemurs ["On the anatomy of Lemuroidea"] Trans. Zool. Soc. [7 (1872): 1–114].

Explains why he has declined writing a review for Messrs Appleton.