In despair: has lost his copy of Verlot’s memoir on variations of flowers [Sur la production et la fixation des variétés (1866)]. Has JDH borrowed it?

Is in a mess with his correspondence and will get no assistance before 1 April.

Has agreed to give an address on the Darwinian theory at Nottingham [meeting of BAAS].

Has found Verlot.

His sister [Emily Catherine Langton] is dying [d. 2 Feb 1866].

His stomach still very bad. Writes one or two hours and reads a little.

JDH is a wretch to remind CD of his coal-plant prophecy.

Glad JDH will give Nottingham lecture.

Sorrow about Mrs Langton. Has been haunted by death these six or eight years. Now cannot bear to look at children asleep in bed – a sight he once thought the loveliest thing in creation.

Asks CD whether he knows of a medicine to check vomiting – for a friend dying from starvation as a result.

Duke of Somerset is looking for two naturalists for survey ship to Korea and Strait of Magellan.

Had Busks and Lyells to dinner.

Examines and criticises evidence for CD’s hypothesis that the glacial period was not one of universal cold. Physicists deny its possibility.

Lyell wants to see JDH’s last letter [the part on glacial periods]. Lyell full of concern about astronomical causes of heat and cold on the globe.

Encloses letter from John Scott.

Refers to part of JDH letter on glacial period sent on to Lyell. CD will not yield. Cannot think how JDH attaches so much attention to physicists. Has "come not to care at all for general beliefs without the special facts".

His health is improved but not so good as JDH supposes.

Asks to visit Down on Saturday.

Mrs Hooker will not come with him to Down on Saturday.

Extensive discussion of Pangenesis in reply to JDH’s comments.

Queries for John Smith [Kew curator] on crossing a cucumber variety.

Reference to description of Begonia phyllomaniaca.

Thanks for the explicit account of Pangenesis. Thinks he now follows CD’s ideas but Pangenesis is very difficult and speculative.

Oliver has lost his little girl.

Sad about Oliver’s loss.

JDH’s reference to odd Begonia at same time as an article about it came out in Gardeners’ Chronicle [(1866): 313–14].

Is astonished that Pangenesis seems perplexing to JDH. Pleads guilty to its being "wildly abominably speculative (worthy even of Herbert Spencer)".

Asks how many plants are proper to New Zealand for new edition [4th] of Origin.

Thanks for facts about New Zealand flora.

Needs Annales de la Société d’horticulture de Paris 7 (1830).

Asks that Oliver provide a reference for microscopical appearance and structure of a bud.

Was very well on first part of London visit.

Orchids.

Lyell has written to JDH about coal-plants of Melville Island.

Has glanced at first edition of Principles and has no doubt that Lyell meant the whole globe was cooler when land was massed at poles. JDH doubts this.

Caspary wants to visit Down. CD would like to see him but dreads the exertion.

Pleased that JDH will get D.C.L. at Oxford.

Refers to enclosure from Asa Gray

with whom he can talk calmly now that war is over. North had no right to resort to bloodshed.

Startled by CD’s attendance at Royal Society soirée.

Has asked E. B. Tylor to make up questions for consuls and missionaries, through whose wives a lot of most curious information [for Descent?] could be obtained.

Tying umbilical cord has always been a mystery to JDH.

John Crawfurd’s paper on cultivated plants is shocking twaddle ["On the migration of cultivated plants in reference to ethnology", J. Bot. Br. & Foreign 4 (1866): 317–32].

R. T. Lowe back from Madeira.