CD thanks JBI for contribution to Down school.

George [Darwin] has passed his examination at Cambridge;

Henrietta has been poorly.

Thanks JMH for his congratulations.

Recalls gift of microscope [from JMH in 1831]. [See 99].

Asks GHKT about eyes of screaming elephants.

Asks about proportions of male to female insects.

CD is much interested in FB’s remarks in Land and Water on the apparent excess of male trout over females and asks for further information on other fish, birds, and domestic quadrupeds.

Asks whether mane in male of Macacus silenus protects it from bites or is merely ornamental.

CD thanks BJS for photographs of Jemmy [Button]’s son

and for the curious case about stallions, which leads him to ask whether BJS has observed that horses when fighting try especially to bite each other’s necks.

Does he know anything about male seals fighting?

Bird specimens collected by Capt. P. P. King eventually went to British Museum, but many specimens were incorrectly marked.

CD sends thanks for information; he will write to Mr Bush.

In relation to the fecundation of ova CD adds that he has compared the use of very little pollen against an immense supply; found no difference in number or weight of seeds or in their germination.

Thanks WS for information about moss roses and the Le Compte family.

Mentions WS’s recent papers on inheritance [Brit. & Foreign Med.-Chirurg. Rev. (1867)].

Discusses beaks and relative numbers of the sexes of goldfinches.

Comments on sexual selection among butterflies.

Mentions Kerguelen moth collected by Hooker.

Comments on JJW’s observations on coloured birds.

The second volume of Lyell’s [Principles, 10th ed.] gives a "fair history of the progress of opinion on Species".

Pleased by allusion to Pangenesis: "an untried hypothesis is always dangerous ground".

Looks forward to chapter on domestication and on man.

CD asks about HD’s observation of sexual call of Coleoptera.

Also comments on statements by collectors that they breed more females than males from caterpillars. CD had thought this might be accounted for by the collection of largest and finest caterpillars, but Alexander Wallace says the collectors take large and small equally. Does HD agree with Wallace?

Sends his niece’s [Lucy Wedgwood] observations on worms, vouches for her accuracy, and suggests the piece be inserted in Gardeners’ Chronicle [see "Worms", Gard. Chron. (1868): 324].

Adds his thanks for a "very kind review" of his book [Variation, Gard. Chron. (1868): 124].

CD thanks JJW for the mine of information his last "ten!" letters contain. Comments on sexual display of pheasants and colour preferences of pigeons.

Asks about hens that pair earliest in spring and about possible existence of unpaired birds.

Promises to send coral specimens.

Thanks JJW for his great assistance.

Discusses sexual selection in birds.

Sends queries on secondary sexual characteristics of birds.

Has often marvelled at the different growth of the flowering and creeping branches of ivy.

CD cannot remember whether correspondent believed the wing that Gallus bankiva opens and scrapes before the female, is ornamented. He fears it is not.

GHKT should not take more trouble about human expression. Discusses contraction of orbicular muscles in elephants.

Asks about colour of first plumage of breeds of Ceylon fowls in which hens alone are coloured.

Thanks WWR for information in answer to his queries concerning expression.

Asks when horns first appear among a breed of sheep on the Guinea coast,

and for information about the gorilla and chimpanzee.

Asks about African ideas of beauty.