Sends, as corroboration of earlier articles on hedgehogs carrying fruit on their spines, a passage from a letter from R. Swinhoe [5598] describing hedgehogs carrying strawberries to their holes.

Seeks CD’s opinion and references on the causes of terraces in the south of England. He supports sea action as cause, either by currents or on coasts, and has been engaged in a controversy in the Geological Magazine [4 (1867): 571–5] with the subaerial school. Poulett Scrope thinks they are agricultural.

Explains that he has made it a rule not to write for periodicals, however eminent.

A sermon.

JvH forwards J. Stack’s replies to CD’s queries about expression [see Expression, p. 20].

Sends photos of skeletons of six species of Dinornis he is assembling for the Museum.

Thanks CD for showing her proofs [of Variation] relating to cattle at Chillingham Park [see Variation 1: 81, 83–4]; has made abstracts of them for her own article.

Will have to delay starting on the bust of CD.

Sends his photograph.

Asks for any information of well-marked sexual differences in snakes, batrachians, or lizards. The rattlesnakes at the Zoological Garden differ considerably in colour.

Discusses transport of frog spawn and young molluscs by birds.

Wants to catch some queen bees to ship to Australia; wonders whether CD’s sons can help.

Some corrections and queries about Variation text. Is pushing hard to finish, but CD is right that the names in the notes make the work interminable. Fears he is causing delay in publication. Is astonished at "the wonderful array of facts brought together and at the manner in which you bring them to bear".

Thanks CD for information on inclined terraces in S. America, which DM thinks applies to the chalk downs of S. England. CD’s definition that the sea widens and fresh water deepens is key to the subject.

Asks for name of the birds that have only once obtained summer plumage.

Wishes he could persuade ADB to experiment to see whether bower-birds prefer gay colours.

On the summer, or breeding, plumage of birds.

Gives his comments on the merits of a paper on South African botany [by J. P. M. Weale, "Notes on Bonatea", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 10 (1869): 470–6].

Introduction of humble-bees into Australia.

Thanks for his memoir ["On the appendicular skeleton of the Primates"].

Asks for index to Zoological Society’s Proceedings.

Mentions article on "Barbets" by PLS in Intellectual Observer [12 (1867–8): 241–6].

Thanks for copy of HS’s First principles [? 2d ed. (1867)].

Comments on HS’s Principles of biology [1864, 1867].

The horns and spines of homopterous insects do not vary between sexes. Sexual differences in Blattidae.