The editor of a supplement to the New Free Press to be published during the next Vienna Exhibition, asks CD to contribute a few columns on any topic.

Delighted with John Traherne Moggridge’s book [Harvesting ants (1873)].

Has suggested he plant seeds in various receptacles. Only two explanations for failure of seeds to germinate [in ants’ nests]: lack of circulating air or formic acid.

Has undertaken a botany primer for Macmillan.

Comments on CD’s and William Huggins’ letter in Nature on "Inherited instinct" [Collected papers 2: 170–1]

and on A. R. Wallace’s letter on the homing faculty of animals. Believes many instances of homing are less remarkable than they appear.

Sends pamphlet on punishment in education [Punishments in education, read at Social Science Congress, 1872] in response to Expression. Proposes that character can be diagnosed from expression.

CD is asked to increase his shares in the Artizans, Labourers, & General Dwellings Co. Ltd., which has trebled its capital in the last year and is paying a 6% dividend.

Thanks CD for comments on Die Kalkschwämme.

Plans trip to Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt.

Discusses work of a Polish translator, Ludwik Masłowski.

Thanks CD for Expression.

Suggests saving some anthropoid Quadrumana from extinction by taming and studying them in their own environments to learn about their development.

Asks for references to works on CD’s views for a paper he is preparing.

Sends "squib" he has written exposing the folly of some of Louis Agassiz’s ideas. AG cannot "fire off [his] cracker" in U. S. so sends it to amuse CD. If it is sent to Nature, CD must not give AG’s name. [See "Survival of the fittest", Nature 7 (1873): 404].

Sends a paper on behaviour he has observed in ants.

Additional errata in Descent.

Winter in Duluth.

HAH is leaning toward spiritualism.

Limit of natural and sexual selection.

Has been around the world three times.

Sends his book [Die Befruchtung der Blumen (1873)]. Hopes CD will publish an opinion of it.

Has sent Vichy water, discusses prescription. Tell Arthur Parslow not to continue on colchicum for gout if doesn’t suit him. May go to Pryor’s on Sunday.

Fears [CD’s] albumen theory will not work because albumen is coagulated and filtered out in making extracts of belladonna, hyoscyamine, and colchicine [alkaloid poisons].

Has investigated whether it makes a difference if extracts [of alkaloid poisons] are made from leaves, seeds, or roots.

Thanks for Expression. Will write paper on it in next [July] West Riding Asylum Medical Report.

Sends photos of lunatics;

will send notes corroborative of CD’s views, including some on "hereditarily transmitted movements".

Although he believes in evolution, TM feels that natural selection is an inadequate cause;

nor is he satisfied with E. D. Cope’s law of acceleration and retardation.

Discusses some of his work relating to nutrition and sex and colour and sex.

Praise for and detailed comments on Expression.

Two cases of coloration in animals – one from sexual selection, the other helping to procure prey [see Descent, 2d ed., pp. 542–3].

Recounts the difficulties in preparing the French translation of Origin: the 1870 war, the illness and death of J. J. Moulinié, the alterations and additions from the 6th English edition. Despite competition from Royer’s three editions, Reinwald is contemplating a new edition.

Descent, vol. 1, has almost sold out. Offers CD £40 for rights to reprint a corrected version of Descent.