Congratulates JDH on his becoming a C.B.

Hard at work on sexual selection – weary of everlasting males and females, cocks and hens.

Has read J. H. Stirling vs Huxley on protoplasm [As regards protoplasm (1869)]

and E. B. Tylor on survival of old thoughts in modern civilisation.

Bentham’s Linnean Society [Presidential] Address [see 6793] is worth its weight in gold in making converts. C. J. F. Bunbury is impressed by it.

Likes JDH’s review of K. F. Schimper’s work [Paléontologie végétale, in Nature 1 (1869): 48].

Glad to know about C.B.

Thinks better of Nature than JDH does.

Likes Academy.

Is reading Anton Kerner on Tubocytisus [in Die Abhängigkeit der Pflanzen von Klima und Boden (1869)].

The genealogical tree reveals the very steps of the formation of the species.

Mlle Royer has brought out a third edition of her translation of the Origin without informing CD, so corrections to fourth and fifth English editions are lost. Has arranged for a new translator of the fifth English edition.

Sends title of Kerner’s book [see 6997] and comments that AK does not give the one parent form of the genus.