Was glad to see CD at museum.

Asks CD to sign and return enclosed item.

CD did not cover oysters in his book; FB can point out curious facts about them.

Forwards H. T. Stainton letter for reply.

Finds many Cucurbita have tendrils with sticking ends.

The "potentiality of so many organs in plants to play so many parts is one of the most wonderful of your discoveries . . . one day it will itself play a prodigious part in the interpretation of both morphological and physiological facts".

Is disgusted with Sabine’s address [see 4708] because of its mutilation of what JDH wrote.

THH’s slashing leader in Reader ["Science and ""Church policy"" ", 4 (1864): 821] – as usual he destroys all in his path.

Encloses letter from G. H. K. Thwaites with a message for CD [see encl].

Has just been shown CD’s remarks on Tennyson. Upbraids CD for "Owen-like quotation" out of context, and getting source wrong. "If ""facts"" in Origin are of this sort I agree with Bishop of Oxford."

Sends photograph.

THH wishes he could write the popular zoology but writing is a boring and slow process when he is not interested, and he is overburdened with lectures.

Thanks for Lythrum paper [Collected papers 2: 106–31].

T. S. Cobbold’s book on the Entozoa [1864].

Remarks on development of the tapeworm.

Ludwig Rütimeyer thanks CAB for the skull of a Chillingham cow, and thinks it may belong to the Primigenius race.

Encloses letter [missing] which he believes will clear up the part he played in Edward Sabine’s Presidential Address. Does not wish CD to think that he did not support the Origin.

Regrets he has not yet finished his monograph on Bos. Has examined and discusses the Bos skull from Lord Tankerville.

Would like CD’s opinion on the conclusions in LR’s paper on fossil horses.

Thanks for photograph, charmed by Mrs Huxley’s letter.

Regrets THH cannot do the popular work on zoology.

Has heard THH wrote leading article in last Reader ["Science and ""church policy"" ", 4 (1864): 821].

HF merely wanted to correct a false impression given by a sentence taken out of context.

"I return your letter to [William] Sharpey." Grandest eulogium CD has received.

Thanks CD for his Lythrum paper [Collected papers 2: 106–31].

Tells of the birth of his 16th child. Has five grandchildren.

Thanks CD for his paper on Lythrum [Collected papers 2: 106–31].

Astonished by CD’s powers of observation and perseverance.

His elms raised from three varieties of weeping elms are doing well.

Concerning the proposed translation of K. F. von Gärtner’s Bastarderzeugung (1849).

Has finished long paper on "Climbing plants". Prefers sending it to Linnean Society if Bentham does not think it too long.

For New Zealand flora [1864–7] CD suggests JDH count plants with irregular corollas and compare with England.

Does not quite agree about Reader.

Is Tyndall author of piece on spiritualism?

CD’s illness diagnosed as "suppressed gout".

Bentham wants "Climbing plants" for Journal of the Linnean Society, however long [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 9 (1865): 1–118]. Publication in Proceedings of the Royal Society restricts correspondence.

Reader much improved.

Tyndall did write piece on spiritualism ["Science and the spirits", Reader 4 (1864): 725–6].

"Suppressed gout" annoys him as a term cloaking ignorance.

Thanks TCE for information about breeding

and for his promise to measure feet of otter-hounds [see Variation 1: 39–40].

"Read a letter from Mr Darwin expressing his regret that the state of his health would not permit of his writing an Introductory Chapter to the Translation of Gaertner’s work [Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (1849)]."

Thanks for [E. Eudes?] Deslongchamps’ paper.

Henry Huxley born.

Leader in Reader [4 (1864): 821] is by THH. It has got him into trouble with some of his friends.

His view of Origin.

Belief of Duke of Argyll that substituting "variation" and "selection" for creation deifies them.

Thinks Argyll would accept evolution except for man.

A’s view of humming-birds.

Describes discussion with [Victoria,] Princess Royal of Prussia, about evolution.

New edition of Elements consistent with Origin.