Migratory male nightingales and blackcaps arrive before females [see Descent 1: 259].

Discusses chaffinch "Peggers".

Disagrees with CD’s opinion that canary mules are fertile.

Display of colour of greenfinches in courtship.

Thanks for information about bird migration.

Comments on canary hybridisation.

Loss of juvenile colouring in South Down sheep.

"My health got so bad I could do nothing at Down".

Gives information about migration of male and female birds.

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.

Describes the unusual appearance of a horse whose mother had previously borne a foal by a quagga. The effect of one mating on the subsequent pregnancy of another mating is explained by JJW using Pangenesis.

Asks about birds erecting feathers when enraged or frightened. Interested in examples of expression in birds and animals.

Tells of the sheldrake dancing on tidal sands to make worms come out.

On behaviour of birds when frightened and when threatening.

Purple Cytisus grafted onto yellow stock produces some yellow flowers.

Mutations in rabbits.

Cites case of variegated leaf form of one plant apparently spreading to a neighbour.

On birds erecting feathers.

Comments on production of buds in Cytisus.

Discusses case of rabbit-breeding which affected subsequent progeny of female.

On mutations in rabbits.

Cytisus case is not a double graft.

Aggressive behaviour of birds of prey.

Cannot accept JJW’s invitation to a party. His health has been worse than usual for some months – can see no one nor can he go anywhere.

Is preparing a cheap edition of the Origin [6th] and will answer Mivart’s objections.

CD is pleased JJW likes C. Wright’s "Darwinism" [see 7940]. Huxley will publish a splendid review of it in Contemporary Review [Nov 1871].

"Like you I have often wondered at the different food of the old and young, as with graminivorous birds feeding their young with insects."

Recommends forthcoming book by John Lubbock [Monograph of the Collembola and Thysanura (1873)].

Not surprised incipient disease in female would make her unattractive to male.

Sorry JJW’s official duties are so heavy.

Thanks for new case.

Not very well.

On variegated leaves; a feature not inherited consistently.

Hostility of birds toward others with same colour;

nuptial plumage.

Spiza cyanea and Spiza ciris.

Has no doubt he will find JJW’s address interesting.

Thinks same spot for nesting might prove attractive to birds, though they had had no intercommunication.

JJW is quite at liberty to use CD’s name as patron of cat show.

Hybrid Motacilla.

Case of female duck leaving mate to pair with male of another species.

August Weismann is interested in JJW’s experiments on birds and the caterpillars they eat.