Recommendations of books of general interest [for the Royal Society library]. These include [Louis] Agassiz’s works, [William] McGillivray’s [History of] British birds, and David Low’s [On the domesticated animals of the British Islands].

Comments on current candidates for the Royal Society.

JDH cites W. H. Harvey’s observations on Fucus and David Don’s on Juncus as examples of variations that are independent of climate. There are many such cases. Gives his working scheme for categorising variation.

Thanks JDH for response on variation. Studying variations that seem correlated with environment, e.g., north vs south, ascending mountains.

CD’s weed garden: observations on slugs killing seedlings.

Seed-salting. One-seventh of the plants of any country could be transported 924 miles by sea and would germinate.

Lists groups of insects absent from the Madeiran fauna.

Has found no reference to construction of bees’ cells in works referred to by CD. Describes cell of Osmia atricapilla. Hive-bees’ cell was described at Entomological Society.

Fish will take both sorts of seeds sent by CD, but will not take oats.

In reply to CD’s query [see 2072], JDD describes what little is known about the crustacea of the Antarctic and southern lands.

Knows of no species of the cold temperate south identical with those of the cold temperate north.

No summary available.

Curative power of hydropathy.

General hairiness of alpine plants questioned: direct environmental effect.

CD has long felt JDH is too hard on bad observers.

No summary available.

JDH has shaved the hair off the alpine plant.

CD apologises for his criticism.

Apparent but false relations of plant structure to climate: heath-like foliage of all Cape of Good Hope plants.

JDH’s last letter demolishes woolly alpine plant theory.

Correlation of apetalous flowers and cold climate.

No summary available.

Discusses family health and affairs.

Asks JDH’s opinion, and botanical evidence, on important law: parts that are highly developed in comparison to other allied species are very variable.

Interest in hairiness of alpine plants revived by reading A. Moquin-Tandon [Éléments de tératologie végétale (1841)]; correlation with dryness. CD seeks interpretation independent of direct environmental effect.

Discusses difficulties involved in deciding which genera are protean in the light of some comments by H. C. Watson.

Request for Floras of Pacific Islands and Greenland.

Individual variation.

Comments on species with disjoined ranges; does not feel, despite CD’s expectations, that they tend to belong to small families.

Gives the proportion of U. S. trees in which the sexes are separate [see Natural selection, p. 62].

Qualifications of John Lindley, Huxley, Albany Hancock, Joseph Prestwich, J. C. Ross, and Francis Beaufort for Royal Medal.

"Law" [see 2092] correlating variability and abnormal development not confirmed by JDH for plants.

CD studies struggle for existence in his weed garden.

Scotch fir observed at Moor Park.