Offers to sell CD a portrait of Dr Erasmus Darwin by Joseph Wright of Derby.

He has heard CD is about to be elected to the Académie des Sciences.

Cross and self-fertilisation, with its emphasis on insect pollination, helps explain the problem he has worked on for so long: i.e., the rapid diversification of angiosperms in the fossil record occurs in conjunction with the diversification of insects.

JCC and his young daughter have observed that blossoms of Drosera rotundifolia open in afternoon, which contradicts Forms of flowers.

Expresses his gratitude and admiration for AK’s and M. G. Retzius’s Studien in der Anatomie des Nervensystems und des Bindegewebes (2 vols. 1875–6).

Thanks for Origin, 6th ed.

A misprint in Variation.

Such honours as proposal for election to Institut affect CD very little.

GdeS’s idea that dicotyledonous plants were not developed until sucking insects evolved is a splendid one. The suggestion that fertilisation of the surviving members of the most ancient dicotyledons should be studied is a good one. CD hopes GdeS will keep it in mind.

BJS was pleased to see CD’s son [William] and his wife at Charles Langton’s.

His own son is preparing for marriage.

Reports meeting a former Beagle shipmate.

Thanks JVC for a correction [for 3d German edition of Variation]. He is the most accurate translator that ever lived.

Asks for the wing of a goose said to have transmitted effects of an injury by hereditary descent.

Informs CD of his work on the "unity of language in its development".

Cannot allow WCM to pay extra charge for glass. Rooms all very comfortable.

Thanks AG for his kindness in sending his valuable work [Les enchaînements du monde animal vol. 1 (1878)].

"If you finally succeed in proving that all languages have been developed from a common root, you will indeed have effected a most valuable piece of work."

Sends details of H. H. R. Koch’s work on bacteria, including first photographs.

J. S. Burdon Sanderson’s and Koch’s collaboration on systemic fever.

Thinks movement of Francis Darwin’s Dipsacus filaments is an artifact.

Reports, as treasurer, on the financial position of the Club.

Speculation on the process by which tails have been lost; believes he has evidence from man that it is related to spina bifida.