Thanks for observations on worm-castings and for JLGK’s amusing letter.

Wants to know whether species of Eucalyptus are dichogamous. [The P.S. on Eucalyptus may be part of another letter to another correspondent.]

Has been in bed for some days with ugly head symptoms. "We are a poor lot."

Will reread and consider TG’s letter when his health improves.

Orders list of chemical salts. Ashamed to order from Hopkins and Williams because they charge him such an extremely low rate.

Asks FD to bring any book that gives the affinities of the various earths, alkalis and metals.

Orders salts of various metals; thinks chlorides (where soluble) would be better than nitrates.

Thanks JC-B for volume of Asylum reports and paper on epilepsy. Seems clear from reports that physiology of brain will soon be largely understood.

Requests chemicals for Drosera experiments. Lists 12 acids tried so far.

Pleased JSBS has decided to work on Drosera; sends plants. Does not know whether thermo-electric pile could detect temperature change when leaves close.

CD’s experiment with very weak hydrochloric acid repeated with success: the plants digest albumen more quickly.

Thanks TFC for his extremely interesting paper ["On the fertilisation of the New Zealand species of Pterostyles", Trans. & Proc. N. Z. Inst. 5 (1872): 352–7]. Has no doubt his explanation [of the fertilisation mechanism] is correct. The case is analogous to that of the Cypripedium though TFC’s case is much more curious.

Thanks for strange debate, which CD returns. Principle of evolution has first-rate supporters in [Edward Sylvester?] Morse and Theodore Nicholas Gill.

Thanks JDH and Thiselton-Dyer for useful information.

Is surprised Mimosa albida is not sensitive to water. Asks that they try again, or lend it to him.

Remembers a walk in Brazil in great bed of Mimosa.

After JDH left, CD was very bad, with much loss of memory and severe shocks continually passing through his brain.

Thanks JSBS for telegraphing his results, which seem very remarkable; feels he should now try Drosera.

Very pleased at JSBS’s discovery ["On the electrical phenomena which accompany the contractions of the leaf of Dionaea muscipula", Rep. BAAS 43 (1873): 133].

Asks for pure animal substances [proteins] for Drosera experiments. His other sources have been T. L. Brunton, Edward Frankland, W. A. Miller (now dead), and Hoffmann of Berlin [A. W. von Hofmann?].

Thanks for ESM’s paper ["On the systematic position of the Brachiopoda", Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. 15 (1873): 315–72]. "What a wonderful change … to look at these ""shells"" as ""worms""."

JJW is quite at liberty to use CD’s name as patron of cat show.

Obliged for information on Mimosa albida; if a vigorous plant behaves as JDH says, CD’s notions are all knocked on the head.

Anxious to read Tyndall’s answer to Tait [Nature 8 (1873): 399].

Drosera story too long for his strength. Essentially the leaves act just like stomach of an animal.

Burdon Sanderson will give some grand facts at BAAS about Dionaea.

Offers to help JDH with Nepenthes experiments. Finds experimental work always takes twice as much time as anticipated.

Consults about the wisdom of Frank’s becoming CD’s assistant rather than practising medicine.

Outlines his finances.

[Copy in EAD’s hand.]

CD, in commenting on Wyville Thomson’s "Notes from the Challenger" [Nature 8 (1873): 347–9], recapitulates his work on rudimentary male cirripedes [Living Cirripedia], especially the complementary males attached to hermaphrodites. Offers an explanation, on evolutionary grounds, of their function and size.

Requests 6 2oz bottles with corks. Folic acid produces remarkable effect. Orders hydriodic acid.