Mentions extinction on St Helena.

Madeira and Canary Island insects are found at Cape of Good Hope.

Regrets errors on dingo in his manuscript on the dog.

Discusses crosses among pigeons.

Compares development in birds and mammals.

Plans to write about other domestic animals.

Discusses races of early man.

Falconer’s discoveries of fossil elephants.

Comments on articles by Asa Gray.

Fears that multiple origin of the domestic dog will be extended to mammals or man. Believes, with Hooker, that whatever occurs in domestication is possible in nature.

Discusses extinction of ammonites.

Discusses August Krohn’s cirripede research and Krohn’s correction of his own work.

Discusses origin of dog in connection with origin of man.

Comments on the guinea-pig in South America.

Notes K. E. von Baer’s view of species.

Mentions difficulty of crossing rabbit and hare.

Agrees with Hooker’s views on variation under cultivation and in nature.

Regrets use of term "natural selection", would now use "Natural Preservation".

Expects lack of diversification of immigrant mammals on long isolated islands will come to show slowness of selective change.

Asks whether CD has speculated on turtles becoming terrestrial on remote islands.

Perhaps non-diversification on islands is explained by tiny proportion of variable species. Those that vary on continent may not do so on island.

A. Gray is afraid of objections to Origin from imperfection of fossil record.

His argument with Falconer over the hypothesis of limited modifiability.

Are the bird-like characters of the Apteryx parts not yet suppressed or nascent organs?

Extinctions of ammonites, belemnites, and hippurites are striking. Perhaps ammonites made way for higher cuttle-fish.

Believes hybrid origin of domestic dog would weaken objections to treating white man and negro as species. Are there not many reputed species among the Mammalia more closely related than these races?

Objects not to the term "selection" but to what CD assigns to it. It should not be confused with the "Creative power" behind variation and the "capacity of ascending in the scale of being".

Comments on letter from Jeffries Wyman.

Discusses reprinting reviews by Asa Gray.

Mentions views of W. S. Symonds on the geological record.

Discusses descent of turtles and tortoises.

The universality of variation.

Notes only a few species leave modified descendants.

Discusses Apteryx.

Variation among pigeons.

Comments on fertility among hybrids.

Does not agree that he makes natural selection do too much work.

CD would have carried the public more if he had explained adaptations by multiple causes, some unknown and some well known, i.e., natural selection.

Discusses Hooker’s views of extinction on St Helena.

Work on antiquity of man suspended.

Stopped by 11th edition of Principles of geology [1872].

Discusses views of T. V. Wollaston concerning island species related to those of mainland; possible land connection between islands and mainland.

Comments on bats of Atlantic islands.

Plant extinction on St Helena.

Experiments on Drosera.

Bronn’s objections [to the Origin] at end of his translation.

Wonders why the coracoid bone in the flightless Apteryx is so large when the clavicles are reduced. The clavicles are even separate in the ostrich. The large coracoid in reptiles is explained by the connection to the forelimbs.

Encloses advertisement [for C. R. Bree, Species not transmutable (1860)].

Discusses Bronn’s chapter of criticisms.

Mentions variation in rats.

Has ordered book by Bree.

Discusses suggestion that southern corners of Australia may once have been islands.

Mentions "wild speculations" about change in earth’s axes.

CL’s ideas on variation.

Discusses the possibility of a land-bridge connecting Biscay with Ireland and the consequent occurrence in southern Ireland of Asturian plants which are absent from England.

Asks if Hooker or anyone has criticised Edward Forbes’ botanical migration of five floras in the British Isles ["On the connexion between the distribution of existing fauna and flora of the British Isles, and the geological changes which have affected their area", Mem. Geol. Surv. G. B. 1 (1846): 336–432].

Admires Edward Forbes’s theory of continental extensions, but it will discourage investigation of distribution.

Mentions Oswald Heer’s proposed map of Atlantis.

Discusses extinction of plants caused by the glacial era. Migration of plants and animals during glacial period.

Encourages CL’s work [on Antiquity of man (1863)].

Comments on unfriendly reviews. Asks CL’s opinion about including a reply to reviewers in next edition of Origin.

Comments on CL’s advice not to reply directly to reviews.

Describes work on his Drosera manuscript.

Work delayed on his "larger book" [Variation].

Comments at length on the evolutionary significance of Robert McDonnell’s investigations ["On an organ in the skate", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1861): 57–60].

CL has calculated that elevation and subsidence of certain formations in Sweden and Norway take place at the rate of 2 1/2 feet per century. He now proposes to estimate the age of a bed by including a conjecture that pauses occur in the oscillations in the ratio of 4 periods of stasis to one of movement. Applying this formula to Scotland, the last subsidence and re-elevation would be 590,000 years and the age of the beds with human implements would be 20,000 years.

Discusses elevation and subsidence of Europe.

Satisfied that CD finds his conjectured rate of elevation and long periods of stasis reasonable, even if these periods cannot be estimated. Explaining upheaval by subterranean lava flow makes these pauses plausible. Suspects that mountainous areas move more than lowland and coastal areas. General upheavals or subsidence in Europe in glacial period are unlikely. Believes with Jamieson that there was glacial action in Scotland before its submergence and that it was equally mountainous then. Subterranean upheaval visits different countries by turn. Horizontal Silurian strata must have been submerged and upheaved. Rest has always been the general surface character. Believes, however, that the quantity of late Tertiary movement is against CD’s belief in the constancy of continents and oceans: perhaps since the Miocene period, but not since the Cretaceous.

Sale of Origin requires new edition [3d (Apr 1861)].

Further discussion of geological elevation and subsidence in Europe. Compares evidence to that of South America. His theory that semi-fluid matter underlies earth’s crust.

Mentions David Forbes’s explanation of South American nitrate deposits.

Has followed CL’s advice not to reply directly to reviewers.

Quotes passage from letter from Asa Gray dealing with views of Francis Bowen on heredity and Agassiz "(foolish man)" on heredity and languages.

Sent CL the Calcutta Review [with Edward Blyth’s review of Origin, 35 (1860): 64–88].

Discusses progress of CL’s work [on Antiquity of man (1863)].

CD had not thought of subsidence in connection with "roads" of Glen Roy.

Discusses habits of ants.

Mentions George Maw’s "good review" of Origin [Zoologist 19 (1861): 7577–611].

Relates remark by J. S. Mill concerning soundness of logic and method of Origin.

Is at work [on Orchids and Variation].

Mentions Dutch translation [of Origin].

Discusses evolutionary origin of sexuality.

Asa Gray’s suggestion that variation was directed by a higher power and Herschel’s view of providential arrangement in nature.

Compares variation in domestic and wild species.

Asks CL for introductions for his son William in Southampton, where he has joined a bank.