Two letters for WED at E. A. Darwin's. G. H. Darwin has been to dentist. Please collect and pay for GHD’s skates.

Describes her compassion for all his sufferings and writes of her wish that his gratitude could be offered to heaven as well as to herself. To her, the only relief is to try to believe that suffering and illness are from God’s hand "to help us to exalt our minds & to look forward with hope to a future state".

Trying to persuade CD to visit JL.

CD too ill to write.

He thanks Appleton for most beautiful work of natural history he has ever seen.

Glad to hear of the plant; CD instructs WED to make further observations. If it is a good case he will insist on WED’s sending a communication to the Linnean Society.

Sets out estimate for cutting blocks for illustrations of a trap.

Encloses a four-page printed pamphlet on the cruelty of steel traps [see Collected papers 2: 83–4].

CD too unwell to read. JS should not send Primula paper MS until CD returns home.

JS’s MS [of Primula paper] arrived, but CD is too ill to read it.

CD has sent JS’s paper on orchid sterility to Botanische Zeitung and to Hooker.

Regrets CD’s poor health.

"Do not return Primula MS."

Thanks to WDF’s directions, Anne’s tombstone has been found.

CD improved, but recovery is slow. She describes treatment.

Encloses paper she and CD have written [see 4294, which was wrongly addressed by ED and had not reached WDF].

Apologises that CD is too unwell to do any work, but he is most interested in the frequent occurrence of inherited variations in one locality. It would have been a pleasure to visit if his health had permitted.

Sorry to hear of CD’s poor health.

CD’s health.

Family and local news.

CD thanks AN for the note and remarks on the partridge’s leg. CD is too ill to write a note, but will send [for] the specimen as soon as he can. [See 4326.]

Returns a borrowed extract from the [Zoological?] Record.

CD’s Copley Medal. The numbers were ten to eight in CD’s favour but the Cambridge men mustered strongly for Sedgwick.

Asks whether he ought to write to CD while he is ill.

Wonders if he might use Haast’s notes on introduced animals for a notice he is preparing ["Note on the replacement of species in the colonies and elsewhere", Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 4 (1864): 123–7].

CD agrees about reversion.

The discovery of crossing in cryptogams is very interesting.

ED writes on behalf of her husband, who is ill, to thank FH for his letter

and to thank [L. C.] Treviranus for his paper on orchids.

CD wishes to know whether Orchis pyramidalis grows in FH’s neighbourhood. He needs a fresh specimen to compare the stigma with those grown locally.