AS has been seriously ill with rheumatic fever.

Is studying the natives of South Africa to see whether he can trace any connection between them and the populations of North Africa.

Counted seeds by tens. Sends some.

Stupefied by CD’s five forms of Lythrum.

Asa Gray busy with Cypripedium. JDH offers some to CD if he wants to challenge Gray.

J. W. Dawson’s review of JDH’s paper on Arctic plants.

Louis Lucien Bonaparte’s views on Basque and Finnish language [Langue basque et langues finnoises (1862)] suggest to JDH that Basques are Finns left behind after the glacial period, like the Arctic plants!

Requests reference to Jules Planchon’s monograph on Linum [Lond. J. Bot. 6 (1847): 588–603; 7 (1848): 165–86, 473–501, 507–28].

Sends list of seeds, including Oxalis, Boraginaceae especially Alkanna.

Asa Gray says JDH wrote reviews of Orchids in Gardeners’ Chronicle.

His experiments amuse him after dull day’s work on vegetables and fruit-trees.

Leschenaultia formosa has exterior stigma, thus eminently requiring insect aid, and thus ensuring crossing almost inevitably.

Asks whether Samuel Haughton at Dublin who made important medical discovery could be the same who reviewed Origin so hostilely [in Nat. Hist. Rev. 7 (1860): 23–32]; if so, he can sneer at and abuse CD to his heart’s content.

Asa Gray as rabid as ever [on Civil War].

The statement on p. 87 of Origin that birds break the eggs with their own beaks should be revised.

Discusses a crossing experiment.

Has been counting the seeds in pods [of Lythrum?].

Cannot see how J. W. Dawson can accuse JDH of asserting a subsidence of Arctic America. Much of evidence for subsidence during glacial period will prove false as it largely rests on ice action which is more and more viewed as subaerial.

Dawson is biased against Darwinism.

Suggests Greenland may have been repopulated after glacial period extinguished flora, by migration in sea-currents.

Max Müller’s view of origin of language is weakest part of his book [see 3752].

Would like to examine the rare Cypripedium hirsutissimum.

No summary available.

JDH admits he wrote Gardeners’ Chronicle and Natural History Review articles on orchids [Gard. Chron. (1862): 789–90, 863, 910; Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6].

JDH’s objections to CD’s idea of how Greenland was repopulated. Temperate Greenland has as Arctic a flora as Arctic Greenland – a fact of astounding force. Why should certain Scandinavian species be absent? Migration by sea-currents can no more account for the present distribution in Greenland than can special creation.

So JDH did write the Gardeners’ Chronicle review [of Orchids]! CD guessed it from the little slap at R. Brown.

Dawson’s lecture has nothing new. Absurd to assume Greenland under water during whole of glacial period. Suggests absence of certain plants in Greenland due to seeds not surviving in sea-water. Suggests an experiment on vitality in sea-water of plants that might be in Greenland. Is more willing to admit a Norway–Greenland land connection than most other cases.

Urges JDH to warn Tyndall on his glacial theory of valleys in Switzerland.

Is working on cultivated plants.

AG has Cypripedium to send to CD.

Civil War and English feelings.

CD is mistaken in considering Acropera unisexual, with only male flowers [Orchids, pp. 203–10]. JS has successfully fertilised two A. loddigesii flowers. One is ripening. Dissection of the other shows the pollen accomplishes fertilisation without contacting any stigmatic surface. Abortive ovules found in flowers that did not become fertilised when pollinated. JS suggests Acropera has both unisexual male and hermaphrodite flowers.

Sends paper on affinities of Plagiaulax ["On Plagiaulax from the Purbeck beds", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 348–69].

Samuel Haughton was the prejudiced reviewer of the Origin. JDH’s opinion of SH.

Has heard from a W. African collector that P. B. Du Chaillu’s accounts [Explorations and adventures in equatorial Africa (1861)] are all false.

R. F. Burton has impudently stolen credit for Gustav Mann’s Cameroon expedition.

Discusses whether or not "male" Acropera bear fruit. JS’s interpretation of Acropera pollination is ingenious. Pollen-tubes of some cleistogamous flowers germinate in the anthers.

Sends CD a specimen of the domestic pigeon of China.

Discusses a race of ducks he believes are hybrids between the Muscovy and Chinese domestic duck.

No summary available.

No summary available.

Comments on HF’s paper on Plagiaulax from the Purbeck beds. Paper "dreadfully severe" on Owen.

"I am worse than ever in bearing any excitement."

Glad HF attacked Australian Mastodon. Never did believe in him.

Mentions Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63].

Sends CD West Ireland soundings.

More detail on his review "a la Lindley" [see 3797].

Bates’s paper ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566] is capital.

Andrew Murray’s article plays into CD’s hands through sheer ignorance.

JDH is on Royal Society Council.

Has no recollection of applying natural selection to Polynesians. None but a German would dig out such a passage if it exists [see 3812].

Has caused Tyndall to modify his pseudo-geology.

Has not seen Duke of Argyll’s review [Edinburgh Rev. 116 (1862): 378–97]. [The Duke] did not understand Orchids the least little bit, nor the Origin, when JDH saw him.