Robert Brown has cast much doubt on the integrity of the seed-planting experiment.

Thanks SD for some furniture. Describes arrangement of furnishing at Down and work carried out on the grounds. Children are "very full of their approaching lessons".

Comments on GRW’s paper [Rep. BAAS (1843): 65–7; Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 12 (1843): 399–412]. CD says by "link" between any two groups he never understood a half-way link, merely one in a long series. Observes that one cannot have a simple species intermediate between two great families. Criticises GRW’s use of circles to represent groups, which leads to thinking that groups are of equal value.

Describes circumstances surrounding discovery of seed in sand-pit. Encloses certificates testifying to the good character of the men involved.

Has sent WK’s paper to the Annals and Magazine of Natural History (Kemp 1844).

Thanks father for loan. Explains difficulty of acquiring the land through which the approach to Down House now runs.

Chalcidites collected by CD are all similar to those of Europe. Mentions other specimens quite different from European forms.

Henslow has sent him CD’s Galapagos plants along with Macrae’s. JDH impressed by the island endemism, which "overturns all our preconceived notions" on centres of radiation. Describes the extent, and the sharp demarcation at longitude 60° W, of the American and European Northern Hemisphere floras. CD’s plants among those he is using to do Antarctic flora. Drimys winteri shows a graded series of states down the length of the South American continent.

Thanks JDH for short sketch of botanical geography of Southern Hemisphere. Comments on his own S. American collections and observations; notes other Galapagos collections.

"You will have been sorry to have seen in the newspapers, the disturbances & fightings with the New Zealanders. – I have lately been much interested in reading your chapters on the slow decrease in numbers … of these poor people. The case appears to me very curious, especially as the decrease has commenced or continued since the introduction of the potato – the relation between the amount of population & of food is hence inverted. It would have been a case for the great Malthus to have reflected on".

Description and defence of his view of the tosca in Banda Oriental, along the Rio Uruguay and at the Rio Negro, taking issue with A. D. d’Orbigny. Refers to the pumice in the Patagonian Territory. Two tables show the layered tosca formation along the Uruguay.

Says Hooker does not want plant.