Asks whether JDH can send seeds of Hibiscus africanus and of Nolana prostrata raised at Kew.

On birds erecting feathers.

Comments on production of buds in Cytisus.

Discusses case of rabbit-breeding which affected subsequent progeny of female.

Thanks WWR for information on the Nehro idea of beauty and other facts relating to expression.

Congratulates BJS on his K.C.B.

In autumn he will publish a book partly on man [Descent], which he expects "many will decry as very wicked".

Thinks the success of the Tierra del Fuego mission is wonderful.

Wants to keep "The origin of man" as first part of title of book.

Thanks JDH for offer of lilies.

The paper on orchids is by Hermann Müller [Verh. Naturhist. Ver. Preuss. Rheinlande & Westphalens 25 (1868): 1–62], on Platanthera and Epipactis.

Cites another work by P. Rohrbach [Über den Blüthenbau (1866)].

MS [of Descent] ready for printer.

Has read Bentham’s last Linnean Society [Presidential] Address [Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1870): lxxiv–xciv] with great interest.

Thanks BJS for a journal and an interesting letter.

Requests seeds of Nolana prostrata & Hibiscus Africanus, which have been matured in Germany or in the more Southern parts of Europe.

Encloses a query from Camille Dareste [see 7262] about the niata ox skull CD gave to the museum [of the Royal College of Surgeons].

CD sends a "curious drawing" [missing] relating to imitation and protection.

Thinks well of Claparède’s criticism; worth publishing as an answer to Wallace. Bates thinks Wallace’s heterodox views have done mischief to the cause of evolution. Wallace thinks Claparède’s article very weak, CD concludes, because Claparède has arrived at an unpleasant judgment very much like Lyell’s about Bentham’s address.

CD would wager Lyell lately has said something about European Proteaceae.

Does not remember anyone before Wallace on Sumatra and Java.

CD does not think he has a chance against Brandt in French Academy election.

Has not heard of Curtis on Dionaea.

Duke of Argyll is clever, but it is a sin to speak of a real old Duke as a "little beggar".

"My theology is a simple muddle: I cannot look at the Universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent Design."

On spontaneous generation and Bastian.

Asks AG to identify the species of Triton Mr Ford has drawn.

AG’s help has turned CD’s chapter on fishes and reptiles from "much the worst" into "one of the best" [in Descent].

WBT may use any of CD’s material for the new edition of his poultry book. Hopes WBT will keep firmly to his idea of working out pigeon variation.

Writes concerning the questions on consanguineous marriages which CD wishes to have inserted into the Census. Discusses the form the questions might take and the value of the information that would be gained from them.

CD would like questions on consanguineous marriages inserted in the Census to ascertain effects, if any, on fertility.

Sends list of his publications.

Is grateful for interest QdeB has taken in his election [to Académie Française].

Thanks JL for his book [Origin of civilization (1870)], which he has read with "extreme interest". Wishes JL had published four or five months earlier as CD would have "so profited & saved so much work". CD will have to modify some of what he has written [in Descent]. Sees they differ a good deal about moral sense "but hardly two men ever do agree on this perplexing subject".

JL’s note of the 16th [see 7277] about the Census arrived too late for CD to answer.

Thanks Quatrefages for his work on species. Explains that he received the Wollaston Medal for his three geological works.

Sends five papers from J. P. M. Weale for consideration by the Linnean Society.