Asks that authoress be thanked for poem. Enjoyed poetry in old days; now cannot read a line.

Delighted that ERL will find time for original investigations.

Contributes to subscription for Grant Allen.

Regrets GJR and wife could not visit.

Encloses paper [not identified] by Thomas Meehan, a very inaccurate observer.

CD expresses the pleasure the Darwins had in the courtesies extended them by the Marshalls at Coniston.

Thanks GJR for gift of game.

Contributes to [Naples] Zoological Station.

CD responds to VM’s desire to plant a tree in his honour by offering three choices.

Again expresses his pleasure in Coniston.

Acknowledges that Ruskin was right about his feeling "a deep and tender interest about the brightly coloured hinder half of certain monkeys".

Promises to send an oak.

Encloses a cheque to the Down Coal and Clothing Club.

Thanks ERS for information about variation in horses.

Would greatly prefer an enema with a shorter nozzle but with a somewhat larger diameter.

Asks to show GJR’s letter to George Darwin and other sons. A secret cannot be well kept.

Sends thanks for election to American Philosophical Society.

CD thinks JJW’s account [in 7137] is significant for a theory of generation and should go to some scientific society; suggests additional data is needed. Quotes cases of subsequent progeny apparently affected by a previous impregnation. Perhaps not prudent to allude to "despised" Pangenesis, which CD fully believes will have its day.

Declines offer of book on physics.

Thanks StGJM for prompt answer correcting inaccuracies in CD’s notes on StGJM’s opinions. Expects "universal disapprobation" when he publishes Descent.

In a fortnight will begin to arrange notes on expression. Asks for FCD’s conclusions about the contraction of eye muscles. Is interested in abstract of FCD’s experiments on "rate of travelling of the nervous powers".

Expresses sympathy [on death of FCD’s daughter].

Will be grateful for his paper and letter.

Comments on QdeB’s volume [Charles Darwin et ses précurseurs Français (1870)]. Mentions error concerning his views on Parus and nuthatch.

Discusses Canis magellanicus.

Discusses reception of his views in France and Germany.

Orders seeds, ripened in Algiers; imported seed would be of no use. [Forwarded to Algiers by JDH, see 7272.]

Thanks FCD for information.

Hopes that translation of his paper will appear in Dublin Journal.

Notes experience of his son [Leonard Darwin] on engorgement of eyes with blood. Discusses secretion of tears when eye muscles are involuntarily contracted.

Comments on translation of FCD’s paper ["On the action of the eyelids", Arch. Med. 5 (1870): 20–38].

Speculates that closing eyelids may protect eyes from vibrations.

Discusses publication of Expression.