Thanks CD for second issue of Variation.

Is glad CD is satisfied with his translation of Piderit.

Will not start on Müller [Für Darwin] until CD has communicated with the author.

Crying in babies.

Does not understand JDH on Pangenesis: on last page he appears to admit all that he regards as mere words on previous pages.

Wallace admires chapter on Pangenesis.

Pangenesis is a comfort. CD gains no idea from words like "potentiality" or "diffusing an influence"; atoms and cells give a distinct idea.

A. Newton told George that Berthold Seemann wrote the Athenæum review

and that Lewis [Lewes] did not write the Pall Mall Gazette review [see 5874].

Bird specimens collected by Capt. P. P. King eventually went to British Museum, but many specimens were incorrectly marked.

Asks whether the colouring of particular butterflies has any protective function, to ascertain whether the function is other than sexual.

Thanks GGS for information on the peacock’s feathers. Asks whether the colour zones around the "eye" could result from varying the thickness of the film of colouring matter or whether it would require different kinds of colouring matter.

Proportion of sexes in insects, captured and bred. [see Descent 1: 313.]