At Asa Gray’s request, responds to CD’s questions about WMC’s observations on Dionaea and particularly about the size of the insects captured and the excitability of the leaves after an insect is captured.

He does not accept Wallace’s definition of instinct because it excludes "inherited experience", i.e., "knowledge acquired by and transmitted through ancestors".

House-flies do not seem to have an instinctive fear of trap-door spiders.

Miss Forster gives him news of CD.

Cannot find a publisher for Italian translation of Expression. Gives up the project.

Would like a museum set up illustrating origins, varieties, and uses of domestic animals; seeks CD’s approval of the idea.

Forwards Matthew Arnold’s Literature and dogma [1873].

Hopes they can secure Hooker for President of Royal Society.

Encloses cheque for 1000 guineas, CD’s share of profits on first 7000 copies of Expression.

Gives a case of peculiar behaviour in cats that apparently is inherited.

Remarks on the "grief-muscles" shown in a Dürer picture.

Sends copy of Vinzenz Czerny [Beziehungen der Chirurgie (1872)], which applies Darwinian principles to pathology.

Recommends illustrations dealing with expression in the Atlas of K. H. Baumgärtner’s Kranken-Physiognomik [1839].

Reports that he has the power of moving his left ear towards the top of his head [see Descent 1: 21].

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.