Thanks CD for returned MS and letter with its good opinion. Asks CD to write to Murray.

Will send an Arethusa; offers other specimens.

Dimorphism.

Falconer contradicts Sumatra and Ceylon elephant story.

Lyell as rabid as ever about America.

Discusses deduction from bill for medicine.

Has sent CD the published part of his work on Carex [Illustrations of the genus Carex (1858–67)]. Hopes to add 200 more figures. Comments on great variability among the 600–odd species, and on their geographical distribution.

Grateful for CD’s approval of "Lake-habitations".

For his father [James Bateman], he sends three more species of orchids and names of others described by CD.

The Japan pig, an unusual domestic species with no wild prototype.

H. W. Bates is, at CD’s urging, writing a book of travel and natural history. CD suggests JM might be interested in publishing it. Recommends HWB and his MS highly.

Owen’s paper on the aye-aye [Rep. BAAS 32 (1862) pt 2: 114–16];

his attacks on CD and his theories.

Will visit CD on Saturday.

Encloses seeds.

Lecoq’s work mentions instances of apparent dimorphism. [H. Lecoq, Études sur la géographie botanique de l’Europe, 9 vols. (1854–8).]

Is preparing a volume of his articles [Essays on scientific and other subjects (1862)], to one of which he would like to add a postscript referring to CD’s Origin [pp. 100–1]. Sends proposed postscript for CD’s approval.

Is JDH sure it is a Bletia, just received? Its pollen very different from any Epidendreæ he has seen. If it is Bletia, Lindley’s grand divisions are fanciful.

Accepts JDH’s offer to collect cases of dimorphism.

James Bateman has sent a lot of orchids with Angraecum sesquipedale. What a proboscis the moth that sucks its 11½ inch nectary must have!

Discusses manuscript by H. W. Bates [Naturalist on the river Amazons (1863)].

Mentions CD’s forthcoming book [Orchids].

Wrote a "frightful screed" about aristocracy’s being a necessary consequence of natural selection, and then burnt it.

H. W. Bates is the only man "thinking out" natural selection to any purpose. "I think I have driven Bates back to Nat. Sel. as the only way of solving his difficulties."

HWB’s mimetic butterflies.

JDH wishes he had time to do the same thing with plants.

Owen and Huxley involved in a "contemptible" squabble in the Edinburgh newspapers.

Maximovitch reports Stellaria bulbifera is a Siberian form which never ripens its seeds.

Encloses note from Murray, hoping it will be satisfactory. Murray is ready to see as much of MS as possible. Murray is considered honest but may be cautious, since HWB’s name is unknown to the public.

Returns HH’s essay.

CK defended CD’s theory at a shooting party with the Bishop of Oxford, the Duke of Argyll, and Lord Ashburton. The discussion started as a result of shooting some blue rock-pigeons which were different from blue rocks of other localities. CK held that all pigeons were descended from one species.

CK proposed that mythological races, e.g., elves and dwarfs, were intermediate species between man and apes, and have become extinct by natural selection; i.e., by competition with a superior white race of man.

Thanks for seeds.

Glad CD approves of the orchids he sent.

Believes the pollinia of Mormodes are projected; thinks CD should look at the pollinia of Chysis and investigate the hybrid between Limatodes and Calanthe.