Review of Spencer was by Chauncey Wright.

Will get a note on John Scott’s paper off to Sillimans Journal [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 39 (1865): 101–10].

Sends £10 for Down charities.

Surprised at Kölliker’s misunderstanding; of Flourens he could have believed anything.

Family news.

Has heard about but not read Origin; is concerned that it may contribute to unbelief. Gives many pages of scriptural quotations and exegesis on the creation of earth, species, etc.

Responds to the letter to Gardeners’ Chronicle, [before 8 October 1864].

Sends a poem about sowing kidney beans.

Encloses an extract concerning beans from the Systema Horticultureæ of 1688 by J. Worlidge. Will be pleased to lend the volume if needed.

Requests photograph.

In response to CD’s notice in Gardeners’ Chronicle [Collected papers 2: 93], sends planting times of peas from an 1861 almanac.

Prescribes continuing the phosphate of iron.

Morphological differences only partly define species; physiological differences, e.g., incompatibility results in Primula, are far more interesting.

T. Thomson’s review of Agardh’s muddled book ["Agardh’s classification of plants", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1864): 536–51].

Forwards a letter from his head brewer, Laurence Burleigh, on yeast. They seldom exchange yeast with other brewers, and he doubts whether weak yeast from one brewery will ferment strongly in another.

Comments at length on Ramsay’s glacial paper ["On the erosion of valleys and lakes", Philos. Mag. 4th ser. 28 (1864): 293–311]. Prefers it to Tyndall, but unconvinced about sea action and unwilling to grant that ice power sculptures the totality of landscape.

Unwilling to support Wallace for Royal Medal.

Herbert Spencer’s noisy vacuity.

Garden varieties that are constant and infertile with parent deserve to be called species.

Scott ineligible to be Linnean Society associate because he is not in England.

George Busk’s incoherent talk on Gibraltar cave fossils.

Thanks CD for notes concerning the development of his ideas about the origin of species. Says August Schleicher and Carl Gegenbaur also interested.

Names new supporters of CD’s theory, including Max Schultze, Rudolf Leuckart, and Alexander Braun. Zoologists have been more interested than botanists.

He is writing a general work on the relationships among animals [Generelle Morphologie der Organismen (1866)].

Comments on Fritz Müller’s Für Darwin [1864].

Gegenbaur is revising his Grundzüge der vergleichenden Anatomie [2d ed. (1870)] to accord with evolution.

Thanks CD for copy of book on balanids [Living Cirripedia, vol. 2].

Regarding Darwin suggestion to nominate ARW for The Royal Society's Gold Medal.

Proposes to work on geographical distribution before leaving the Society.