Sends CD some of the [American Social Science] Association’s publications; asks if they may enrol him as a corresponding member. They have printed CD’s letter to Mrs Talbot

and also his paper from Mind (1877) ["Biographical sketch of an infant"].

Potatoes [from Torbitt experiment] sent him for eating were very poor. Those for seed produced abundantly, but have not resisted disease better than other kinds that Payne [his gardener] has grown.

Sends article on dimorphism in Oxalis violacea [Am. Nat. 16 (1882): 13–19].

Encloses an extract (from the Bayswater Chronicle [missing]), which is part of an ongoing disagreement in which JFS is involved.

Has read some references to CD’s hypothesis on music and offers a MS by himself which deals with the subject.

Has ordered a tin of Somerset Mixture snuff for CD.

The Secretary to the First Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Works thanks CD for providing the funds for a new edition of Steudel’s Nomenclator [Index Kewensis].

Sends a translation of Aristotle’s De partibus animalium and imagines that if the old teleologist were alive CD would convince him of his errors.

Thanks WO for gift of his translation [Aristotle’s De partibus animalium]. Suspects the introduction would interest him more than the text "notwithstanding that he [Aristotle] was such a wonderful old fellow".

Trying to get some Darwinians into the Institut de France.

Politics at Kew led to a letter of thanks to CD from the First Commissioner for his gift.

Thanks for Earthworms.

Sends preferred address.

CD sends cheque for £250 [see 13620].

Has just read CD’s book on worms and is finding tower-like worm-casts, as CD described, in Alpes-Maritimes. Relates case of garden worms and moles.

Suggests that the tendency of the left arm to move with the right leg (and vice versa) during walking is a rudiment of quadrupedal locomotion and thus bears on the descent of man.

Asks GHD to send a copy of his "paper on the moon" [probably Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 171 (1880): 713–891] to V. O. Kovalevsky.

Returns CD’s letter concerning testimonial fund for Grant Allen.

JS is proposing to write a detailed history of the polled Aberdeen breed of cattle [James Macdonald and James Sinclair, History of polled Aberdeen or Angus cattle (1882)] and would be grateful for any instances of hornless breeds known to CD; in particular asks his opinion on the cause of the peculiarity.

Sends a letter [missing] from a Mr Moorhouse on lapwing behaviour that makes earthworms rise to surface.

Writes of his work and a paper accepted for publication in the Philosophical Transactions [? "Stresses caused in the interior of the earth", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 173 (1883): 187–230].

Gives news of friends.

Has sent Kovalevsky his major paper on the moon’s motion, with references to others.