Has initiated inquiries about Dionaea.

Sends George King’s address.

Asks for address of a Mrs Barber somewhere in South Africa.

JDH’s letter in Nature [6 (1872): 516–17] is excellent, and wonderfully quiet.

Severely criticises Owen’s conduct.

Sends Mrs Barber’s address.

Gratified that CD hates Owen. Hopes Owen will not answer Nature letter and draw JDH into controversy. Owen’s letter was not intended for Ayrton to use. Its appearance must have horrified him.

State of Huxley’s health makes JDH uneasy.

Willy is in a stockbroker’s office in London and likes it.

Dionaea plants have arrived. Just ready to observe some points in their structure.

Has Murray sent Expression book?

JDH’s particulars about Owen, Ayrton and Co. ("a nice firm") amused CD much.

Thanks Hooker and Darwin for the money to emigrate to India to work.

Has been asked to take shares in the Artizans’ Dwellings Co., in which CD is a shareholder. If it is really a project for public good, he would be glad to be associated.

Owen has answered his letter in Nature [7 (1872): 5–7].

A letter from Tyndall [from America] was read at the X Club.

Writes, as a P.S. to his previous letter, stating his friends have advised him not to answer Owen’s attack.

Pros and cons of answering Owen’s letter.

On Artizans’ Dwellings, he approves the object but it is lost money as an investment.

Is reading W. R. Greg’s Enigmas of life [1872]: "One of the most eloquent books I ever read".

Owen’s communications are doing incalculable mischief to science in the eyes of Government officials. "This ignorant, careless, unobservant government."

The Nature editors, J. N. Lockyer and Bennett, blame each other for printing Owen’s letter.

Huxley looks wretched.

JDH Should do as he sees fit about proposing him [John Scott] [for fellowship of the Linnean Society].

Asks whether his observations on absorptive powers of glandular hairs of plants are new facts.

Asks for a Drosophyllum.

Comments on Francis Galton’s article in Fraser’s Magazine,

Greg’s Enigmas,

and Alphonse de Candolle’s Histoire des sciences.

Fascinated by Greg’s Enigmas, though its matter is weak.

Is vexed at being drawn into hostility toward British Museum through William Carruthers’ insolence and presumption.

Recounts visit with Edward Cardwell [Secretary for War].

Has sent Candolle’s book to Gladstone.

JDH indignant at Gladstone’s speech putting English science below French and German.

Thinks it is an accepted dogma that glandular hairs are excreting only. Will ask others to confirm.

Explains why he wants Drosophyllum.

Hopes JDH will be elected President of Royal Society.

Agrees with JDH on Greg’s Enigmas.

Would like Greg to visit Down if JDH comes as CD’s "protector".

Drosophyllum is coming from Dublin. Will ship it to Down when it arrives.

The awful honour of Presidency of Royal Society; his aversion to dignities and honours.

R. Strachey [Proc. R. Geogr. Soc. (1873): 450] has paid him and CD a compliment.

Letter from Gladstone.

Had thrown Geographical Society’s Proceedings in waste-basket, but as Strachey shows such admirable powers of discrimination he will fish it out and read the whole article.

Comments on 3d ed. of Sachs’s work [Lehrbuch der Botanik (1873)]. Wishes he were more controversial.

Has become wonderfully interested in Drosera and Dionaea.

9000 copies of Expression have been printed and most are sold.

The Drosophyllum goes to Orpington by train this evening.

Hopes Drosophyllum was all right.

Opinion of Council of Royal Society [on Presidency] is twelve for JDH, five for Duke of Devonshire, and G. B. Airy for William Spottiswoode.

Drosophyllum arrived; none of his observations turned out as he expected, but nevertheless he understands its habits better than he did. The secreting hairs that he observed may be explained as a mere chemical reaction.

Comments on various articles he has read.

Asks for Thiselton-Dyer’s notes.

Is drawing up the account of his crossing experiments. Requests JDH to add the families after nine genera, the names of which he encloses. Whenever there is no objection he would like to arrange the families in some sort of natural order.

Recommends Spalding’s article on instinct in Macmillan’s Magazine [27 (1873): 265–81].

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.