Thanks AD for her account [of the regrowth of her sister’s amputated supernumerary finger]. Is much perplexed what to conclude. Feels he should either retract his account [in Variation, 1st ed., 2: 14–15] or substantiate it by judgment of a physiologist like James Paget. Asks for tracings of her sister’s hand. [See Variation, 2d ed., 1: 459].

CD sends his thanks for her intercession with her sister [Alice Chambers]. The extract from her father’s [Robert Chambers] diary will be sufficient.

He forwards the requested autograph.

Discusses the time of the Duke’s arrival on Tuesday. [See 9968.]

Is preparing new edition of Variation and has a query on speed of racehorses.

Apologises for keeping the tables so long [see 10090]. The results seem extremely curious.

Comments on paper by JHG and J. B. Lawes.

Thanks for a copy of Suess 1875.

Can WDF recall the sex of the deaf white cats.

Thanks him for his kind review of Insectivorous plants in the Spectator. Disputes Tait’s report of a Nepenthes that trapped a fly but did not digest it.

Thanks for answer to racehorse query;

would be grateful for correction of any errors in Variation.

The question is whether additional digits possess power of regrowth beyond the ordinary. James Paget has convinced CD that they do not. CD must alter what he has published. [See Variation, 2d. ed., 2: 459.]

Shares Hooker’s feelings about Douglas Galton and Lord Henry Lennox.

Bored with preparing new editions.

Thanks for the photographs of disks of stone, but not to trouble to send casts, as he will not work on expression again.

Sends errata in Insectivorous plants.

Is correcting proofs of [2d ed. of] Climbing plants, to be published in November. It is, he thinks, worth translating.

A second, much corrected, edition of Variation also will be published.

Suggests GHD write a supplement to his review [of A. H. Huth’s The marriage of near kin (1875)]. Feels sorry Huth was taken in by the Legrain fraud. [See Autobiography (1958), pp. 143–4.]

Obliged for his memoir ["On the avifauna of the Galapagos", Trans. Zool. Soc. (April 1875)]. His surprise that the birds from the different islands prove so similar. Comparison of the habits, nests, eggs of the commonest species of each island would throw a flood of light upon variation.

Thanks for articles about moths sucking oranges.

Sends a moth from Queensland, Australia. The sender says a large number have been caught with proboscises embedded in oranges. CD interested as having a bearing on his Orchis work. Can AGB name the family and any closely allied English genus? The proboscis seems an extraordinary structure [see F. Darwin, "On the structure of the proboscis of Ophideres fullonica", Q. J. Microsc. Sci. n.s. 15 (1875): 384–9].

Responds to FJC’s criticism regarding "aggregation" as it occurs in protoplasm [see 10131].

Explains that the plant is not consuming the flies, but that they die becasue they get stuck in the flowers when fertilising them.

On publishing details of Variation [2d ed.].

CD mortified and annoyed to hear that RC has complained to Messrs Clowes of the extra expense because proofs for Climbing plants were put on wider paper at CD’s request.