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.

No summary available.

Thanks for facts about New Zealand flora.

No summary available.

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.

No summary available.

No summary available.

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.

ARW's marriage to Annie Mitten.

No summary available.

Glad to see Asa Gray’s letter.

Asks whether he may insert a sentence about Cape Verde alpine plants in new edition [4th] of Origin.

Fears "twaddle" may also be the word for his two chapters on cultivated plants. Asks for Crawfurd’s paper.

W. H. Harvey is dead. His loss to science.

Will get a copy of Crawfurd’s paper. It was such trash he tore his up.

His letter to Asa Gray was about his [JDH’s] proof that America will have an aristocracy from interbreeding of wealth, intellect, and beauty; and the lower classes, not having time for politics, will leave them to the aforementioned.

JDH sends a list of the principal confirmatory evidences of CD’s theory which he has prepared at W. R. Grove’s request for Nottingham speech ["Presidential address", Rep. BAAS 26 (1866): liii–lxxxi].

Comments on JDH’s list – very good, but Orchids and Primula paper have too indirect a bearing to be worth mentioning. The Eozoon is a very important fact and to a much lesser degree the Archaeopteryx. Müller’s Für Darwin [1864] perhaps the most important contribution.

CD has forgotten to mention Bates on variation and JDH’s Arctic paper ["Distribution of Arctic plants", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 251–348] in new edition of Origin.

Now finds that Owen claims to be originator of natural selection.

No enclosure in JDH’s last letter.

Would like to be amused "for my stomach & the whole Universe is this day demoniacal in my eyes".

He is not grieved at CD’s omissions of his [JDH’s] work [from Origin, 4th ed.]. It proves nothing – claims only to be illustration of using CD’s methods.