Forwards Matthew Arnold’s Literature and dogma [1873].

Hopes they can secure Hooker for President of Royal Society.

Thanks MA for his Literature and dogma [1873].

Encloses cheque for 1000 guineas, CD’s share of profits on first 7000 copies of Expression.

Returns family documents about "Kepler" [William Huggins’ dog, see Collected papers 2: 170–1]; there is still some sort of investigation into the "precise mental condition" of "Kepler" and his relatives.

Remarks on the "grief-muscles" shown in a Dürer picture.

Is drawing up the account of his crossing experiments. Requests JDH to add the families after nine genera, the names of which he encloses. Whenever there is no objection he would like to arrange the families in some sort of natural order.

Recommends Spalding’s article on instinct in Macmillan’s Magazine [27 (1873): 265–81].

Sends copy of Vinzenz Czerny [Beziehungen der Chirurgie (1872)], which applies Darwinian principles to pathology.

Recommends illustrations dealing with expression in the Atlas of K. H. Baumgärtner’s Kranken-Physiognomik [1839].

Thanks for information on worm-castings. Comments on disintegration of castings.

The editor of a supplement to the New Free Press to be published during the next Vienna Exhibition, asks CD to contribute a few columns on any topic.

Reports that he has the power of moving his left ear towards the top of his head [see Descent 1: 21].

Delighted with John Traherne Moggridge’s book [Harvesting ants (1873)].

Has suggested he plant seeds in various receptacles. Only two explanations for failure of seeds to germinate [in ants’ nests]: lack of circulating air or formic acid.

Has undertaken a botany primer for Macmillan.

Recommends a language teacher.

Remarks on expression.

Will see whether formic acid delays germination of fresh seeds.

Thinks primer not at all a folly. Refers JDH to Asa Gray’s "child’s book" [see 8363].

Comments on CD’s and William Huggins’ letter in Nature on "Inherited instinct" [Collected papers 2: 170–1]

and on A. R. Wallace’s letter on the homing faculty of animals. Believes many instances of homing are less remarkable than they appear.

CD is asked to increase his shares in the Artizans, Labourers, & General Dwellings Co. Ltd., which has trebled its capital in the last year and is paying a 6% dividend.

Sends pamphlet on punishment in education [Punishments in education, read at Social Science Congress, 1872] in response to Expression. Proposes that character can be diagnosed from expression.

Thanks CD for comments on Die Kalkschwämme.

Plans trip to Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt.

Discusses work of a Polish translator, Ludwik Masłowski.

Asks for references to works on CD’s views for a paper he is preparing.

Thanks CD for Expression.

Suggests saving some anthropoid Quadrumana from extinction by taming and studying them in their own environments to learn about their development.

Sends "squib" he has written exposing the folly of some of Louis Agassiz’s ideas. AG cannot "fire off [his] cracker" in U. S. so sends it to amuse CD. If it is sent to Nature, CD must not give AG’s name. [See "Survival of the fittest", Nature 7 (1873): 404].