Disagrees with CD and especially with Lubbock and McLennan about communal marriage. [See Descent 2: 361–3.]

He is waiting to hear about the requirements for the MB examination before considering the possible trip to north America.

Gives cost of printing photographs [for Expression] by the Woodbury process.

Thanks for present of FWF’s The witness of history [1871].

Criticises a book [W. M. Williams, The fuel of the sun (1870)] whose author does not understand thermodynamics, spectrum analysis, and W. Thomson’s papers.

CD will pay for the American trip if it takes place.

Asks whether FD can help him understand the eyes of cephalopods; is the structure the same as in the Vertebrata and are the parts developed from homologous layers of skin?

Has been pleased by a recent review.

Postscript: Is thinking of a cheap edition of the Origin [1872] in which he hopes to answer St George Mivart’s criticisms.

Asks FD whether he can get some references to good papers on cephalapod eyes.

Thanks for the cheque, and also for the offer to pay for him to go on a trip to north America with G. H. Darwin.

Explains about the attendance at St George’s hospital that is required for the MB examaminations, and how this would affect plans for a trip to north America.

Will translate passages as CD requests [see 7735].

Bitter at Prussian militarism.

Comments on and corrections for chapter 13, "Mammals", of Descent.

Several observations on protective coloration and sexual selection.

Has finished Descent, which charmed but did not convert him.

Sends examples of dogs’ reasoning.

Has given up his farm.

Sends two bills [JM’s notes for payments due to CD] for £420 each for 3d issue of Descent.

Sends corrections for Descent.

Reports on the wholesale murder in Paris.

His wife, Sofya Kovalevsky, is working for her examinations.

VOK is studying embryology.

Alexander has left Suez and is now in Jaffa.

Craniological part of Novara voyage report is done.

Expresses his satisfaction at CD’s election as a Foreign Honorary Member of the Academy of Sciences, Vienna.

Offers to send some of his botanical field notes.

Convinced that certain families and genera vary in certain directions. Cites Lobelia’s "inclination" to produce albinos and other cases.

Reports a plant that is abundant in localities unfitted for its full development.

Wild buffaloes will help a wounded calf.

Response to CD’s views among American naturalists.

[Reference to Japanese nuthatch (see Descent, 2d ed., p. 410 n.) excised from letter.]

Sorry they will not have Frank Darwin with them any more.

Explains condor’s mode of flight.

Thanks AN for facts and corrections [for Descent].

The case of the gull must come out [Descent 2: 108 n. 9]. "Oh Lord, how difficult accuracy is!"