Sends an Utricularia and a Drosophyllum.

Observations on Pinguicula grandiflora. [See Insectivorous plants, p. 390.]

Sends specimens of Pinguicula and observations made on them. [See Insectivorous plants, pp. 390–1.]

Reports results [partly excised] of examination of fibro-cartilage subjected to artificial gastric juice and to Drosera secretion. [See Insectivorous plants, pp. 104–5.]

Sets out some of his ideas on the effects of disuse on an organ. Disuse as a cause of reduction.

On hearing of CD’s work with Drosera, tells of his experiment showing extreme sensitivity of the iris of a dog’s eye to atropine. [See Insectivorous plants, p. 173.]

Thanks for Drosophyllum. No longer needs Utricularia.

Discusses specimens of Utricularia.

Mentions JR’s work on desmids [The British Desmidieae [Desmidiae!?] (1848)].

Suggests experiments to try [with Nepenthes]. Asks JDH to test whether cabbage seeds and peas exposed to the ferment germinate.

Discusses effect of atropine solution on eye,

and effect of phosphate of ammonia solution on gland of Drosera.

Would like to see work by T. W. Engelmann and possibly one by Dr De Ruyter.

Asks what can be the meaning of appendages to tips of leaflets of enclosed Acacia or Mimosa.

Is at fibrin today.

Michael Foster suggests coagulation of protoplasm may be diseased, not digestive, symptom.

F. M. Balfour is at Kew today.

The Acacia must be Belt’s "Bulls’ horns".

The complexity of Utricularia has driven Frank and CD almost mad. Suspects it is necrophagous, i.e., it cannot digest, but absorbs decaying animal matter.

Foster is certainly in error. Every insect that Drosera catches causes aggregation.

She and her father have been counting insect remains on Pinguicula hairs.

Thanks GJR for his letter, regrets pressure of other work prevents his giving GJR’s remarks the attention they deserve. GJR makes clearer how an organ that has started to decrease will go on decreasing.

Two Nepenthes have devoured two pieces of fibrin [sketch shows size] in three days.

Has CD any objection to JDH’s giving an account of CD’s Drosera observations at Belfast [BAAS meeting] in a résumé of pitcher-plant results ["Address to the department of botany and zoology", Rep. BAAS 44 (1874): 102–16]?

WED encloses a letter from H. M. Wilkinson about Utricularia and sundew.

H. M. Wilkinson has examined bladders of Utricularia; doubts that they absorb or digest insects.

H. M. Wilkinson describes dragonfly trapped by sundew [Drosera].

"It is grand about Nepenthes."

JDH is welcome to notice in any way any of CD’s published or unpublished results with insectivorous plants. Gives an abstract of his observations on Drosera.

JDH explains he has not written to Asa Gray recently because he is particularly busy during the absence of his aide, William Turner Thiselton-Dyer, who is at South Kensington. JDH is working on a botanical primer for the Macmillan series & doing experiments for himself & Charles Darwin on insectivorous or carnivorous plants: Cephalotes, Nepenthes & Sarracenia. Has neglected work on GENERA PLANTARUM. Has had difficulty getting good systematic contributions for the FLORA INDICA, Thiselton-Dyer & Hiern did good work but Edgeworth, Masters, Andrews & Lawson all needed a lot of correction. Tells Gray about his trip to Florence, Italy for a Congress, run badly by Filippo Parlatore who JDH calls a Tragopogon [also known as 'goatsbeard'] & a 'little toad'. During the trip he saw the Miss Horners, Bakle & his wife, & Mrs Harvey. He also went to Paris, Nimes, Montpelier, Antibes, Hanbury's brother's place near Montara, Genoa, Spezzie [La Spezia] & Pisa & returned via Venice, the Brenner [Pass] Munich & Paris. [Letter appears incomplete. It bears no signature but is written in the hand of Joseph Dalton Hooker.]

Thanks CD for Coral reefs [2d ed. (1874)].

JDD will correct his misunderstanding of CD on one point in the next edition of his book [Corals and coral islands].

Suggests CD consult Charles Wilkes’s Narrative [1844] for more accurate observations on Pacific islands.

Thanks for CD’s son’s observations

and for allowing DAS to visit Down.

Is glad CD approves of his book;

has not yet done any more experiments on snake poison.