Thanks WS for information about moss roses and the Le Compte family.

Mentions WS’s recent papers on inheritance [Brit. & Foreign Med.-Chirurg. Rev. (1867)].

Discusses beaks and relative numbers of the sexes of goldfinches.

Comments on sexual selection among butterflies.

Mentions Kerguelen moth collected by Hooker.

Comments on JJW’s observations on coloured birds.

The second volume of Lyell’s [Principles, 10th ed.] gives a "fair history of the progress of opinion on Species".

Pleased by allusion to Pangenesis: "an untried hypothesis is always dangerous ground".

Looks forward to chapter on domestication and on man.

CD asks about HD’s observation of sexual call of Coleoptera.

Also comments on statements by collectors that they breed more females than males from caterpillars. CD had thought this might be accounted for by the collection of largest and finest caterpillars, but Alexander Wallace says the collectors take large and small equally. Does HD agree with Wallace?

Sends his niece’s [Lucy Wedgwood] observations on worms, vouches for her accuracy, and suggests the piece be inserted in Gardeners’ Chronicle [see "Worms", Gard. Chron. (1868): 324].

Adds his thanks for a "very kind review" of his book [Variation, Gard. Chron. (1868): 124].