Thanks for a photograph of a donkey and children.

Orders a copy of the St Paul’s Magazine for February.

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.

Will see whether formic acid delays germination of fresh seeds.

Thinks primer not at all a folly. Refers JDH to Asa Gray’s "child’s book" [see 8363].

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.

Additional errata in Descent.

Winter in Duluth.

HAH is leaning toward spiritualism.

Limit of natural and sexual selection.

Has been around the world three times.

Praises TWH’s Army life in a black regiment [1870]. CD always thought well of Negroes, and is delighted to have his impressions confirmed.

CD answers a question about the attitude of foreign naturalists towards Darwinism by distinguishing between the belief in evolution and belief in natural selection. Gives the views of [Louis] Agassiz, [R. A.] Kölliker, [C. W.] Nägeli, [Ernst] Häckel, [C. F. W.] Claus, [F. J.] Cohn, Alphonse de Candolle, [J. L.] Claparède, Asa Gray, Gaston de Saporta, [E. D.] Cope, and [Carl] Gegenbaur.

Hopes JC-B thinks that CD has properly acknowledged his debt in Expression.

Sends his book [Die Befruchtung der Blumen (1873)]. Hopes CD will publish an opinion of it.

Has sent Vichy water, discusses prescription. Tell Arthur Parslow not to continue on colchicum for gout if doesn’t suit him. May go to Pryor’s on Sunday.

Fears [CD’s] albumen theory will not work because albumen is coagulated and filtered out in making extracts of belladonna, hyoscyamine, and colchicine [alkaloid poisons].