A month in the West Indies, where he saw the luxuriant struggle of tropical vegetation, has brought HH "still more closely within the circle" of CD’s doctrine.

Asks PLS whether he will look over list of names of birds [for Descent] to make sure they are spelled correctly. "I have a most unfortunate weakness … to copy proper names incorrectly".

Thanks for the clippings about an aurora; thoughts on the relationship of poetry to music.

Describes his children, who all seem to have inherited both dark hairs from their mother and light hairs from WGS with the latter greatly outnumbering the former.