Offers to contribute £10 towards ERL’s expenses in prosecuting Henry Slade, the spiritualistic imposter.

At the behest of the Royal Society officers JDH requests a meeting with an officer of the Treasury. This is in response to a letter from Mr Law. JDH will call at the Treasury the following day; Friday 3 Nov 1876, in hope of seeing William Henry Smith.

Sends a Japanese book illustrating the expression of emotions.

Sends some sheets [of Cross and self-fertilisation].

JDH thanks Asa Gray for a letter of 16 Oct pointing out a mistake in a plant description, the plant as identified incorrectly by Thompson & [John Gilbert] Baker & JDH missed the mistake in the absence of [Daniel] Oliver. JDH asks Gray to explain why he has kept D. elegans & D. puchella [pulchella?] separate as it is not clear from Gray's BOTANY OF CALIFORNIA. Baker & Oliver are certain Gray is wrong about an Iris. Baker is progressing fast with the Mauritian flora. Bennett has bequeathed RBG Kew a share of the Brownian Australia Herbarium. George Bentham is working on Cyperaceae & waiting for Muller to send Australian specimens. Munro is working on Gramineae for Alphonse De Candolle. JDH is busy with Royal Society affairs & preparing his Royal Society Presidential Anniversary Address. Discusses a dispute between the British Museum & Sir Wyville Thomson over distribution & publication of the Challenger expedition collections. The expedition was arranged by the Royal Society so they will adjudicate the dispute on behalf of the government. JDH is strongly against the collections going to the British Museum but is in a difficult position regarding the dispute as he is a Trustee of the British Museum as well as President of the Royal Society & Director of RBG Kew. JDH states that Richard Owen [Superintendant of the natural history department of the British Museum] is unpopular. JDH incredulously cites a claim Owen made to the Treasury that the Keepers of Botany at the British Museum, from Robert Brown to William Carruthers, were responsible for describing the plants collected on Government expeditions dating from the voyages of James Cooke & Matthew Flinders to Berthold Carl Seemann. JDH is especially busy as Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer is on holiday in Italy.

Promises to propose JJW for membership in Zoological Society.

Sympathises with JJW’s enthusiasm about the Danais and hopes it may become naturalised in this country.

Thanks for Japanese book and for HNM’s papers on observations made during Challenger voyage.

Would be pleased if HNM visited him.

L. H. Morgan has plagiarised his and Henry Maine’s works for years.

Encourages George Darwin to continue his work on consanguineous marriages.

Accepts invitation to Down for 17 or 18 November.

Writing under the name of Friedrich von Bärenbach, FM sends his paper on J. G. Herder as a precursor of Darwin’s theory [Herder als Vorgänger Darwins (1877)]; hopes CD will acknowledge him as such.

Is attempting to write a book on elementary lessons in anthropology [Anthropology (1881)] and wonders whether CD’s son [Francis] would care to collaborate and aid him with the biological parts.

Thanks for sheets of new book. Intends to talk about it at a scientific social club meeting.

Is amused to read CD’s criticisms of his own style, as in the U. S. it is spoken of as being as faultless as his temper. Corrects a reference.

JDH thanks Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer [WTTD] for his letter about his travels in North Italy containing admiration for Verona & Saint Marks of Venice. JDH recalls admiring the whole of Venice & the powerful paintings of Titian & Paul Veronese in the Scuola or Academia. Neither JDH nor WTTD like Tintoretto's paintings. JDH recommends WTTD go to Antibes. JDH updates WTTD on the ongoing dispute with the British Museum regarding the collections from the HMS 'Challenger' Expedition. JDH does not think the Treasury should have been involved & will argue that control should go to [Sir Charles Wyville] Thomson with oversight from the Royal Society. JDH is hopeful that the money will be granted for the herbarium men. JDH describes the appointee to the position of Bailiff of the Parks & his salary. Humphreys has been asking about WTTD in connection with an examination. Two seeds of Welwitschia have germinated but been killed by carelessness, there is also a young Welwitschia a foot long. JDH complains about [Richard] Lynch, who has lost all the [George] Nares plants. JDH declares that running an establishment such as RBG Kew requires scientific method. JDH describes the 'No. 4' [green] house as 'miserable', Seward is to be dismissed & JDH or WTTD will have to take the house in hand. JDH is going to spend 3 days with [George] Allman & will work on his Royal Society address.

Responds to request that his son [Francis] aid EBT with book. Comments on EBT’s excellence as anthropologist.

Thanks for present of Studien [zur Descendenz-Theorie, vol. 2 (1876)].

JDH prepares Anniversary Address to the Royal Society [Proc. R. Soc. Lond. (1876): 339–62].

Return of Challenger.

Reports graft-hybrids in Cytisus.

Thanks for new edition of Coral reefs [1874]

and Volcanic islands [1876].

His travels and studies confirm CD’s explanation of the banded structure of lavas.

Is satisfied with sales of his books.

Did not expect Orchids to sell more than 600 or 700 copies.

Only bad item is Expression, which astonishes him, since it sells well in Germany.

Asks size of printing of Cross and self-fertilisation; thinks 1500 would be ample.

On JG’s Great ice age.

Discusses formation of drift deposits near Southampton.

Comments on Axel Blytt [Immigration of Norwegian flora (1876)].

Has had fearful misgivings that the step-like plains of Patagonia may have been caused by changes in level of sea, not land.

Comments on book [Archibald Geikie, Life of Sir Roderick I. Murchison (1875)].