Thanks BJS for account of Mendoza earthquake.

FitzRoy sent CD the last London Review [& Weekly J. Polit.] and he read the article on Genesis, but feels it is an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Would rejoice to see BJS at Down, but explains that he can only spend short spells of time in his company if he comes.

Thanks BJS for his account of S. America and the Fuegians.

Can BJS ask W. H. Stirling to make observations on expression?

Has asked Hooker about the fossil leaves, and he suggests they be sent to Oswald Heer.

Has just sent MS on domestic animals [Variation] to the printer.

Thanks BJS for W. H. Stirling’s answers [to queries about expression]

and for information on cattle and breeding of dogs.

CD thanks BJS for photographs of Jemmy [Button]’s son

and for the curious case about stallions, which leads him to ask whether BJS has observed that horses when fighting try especially to bite each other’s necks.

Does he know anything about male seals fighting?

Congratulates BJS on his K.C.B.

In autumn he will publish a book partly on man [Descent], which he expects "many will decry as very wicked".

Thinks the success of the Tierra del Fuego mission is wonderful.

Thanks BJS for a journal and an interesting letter.

Thanks BJS for his congratulations [on Leonard Darwin’s success].

CD is "as usual, always ailing and grumbling".

Expects his new book [Descent] to "disgust you & many others".

Thanks BJS for his interesting letter about parrots and language.

Suggests BJS write to Louis Agassiz about his [fossil mammal?] specimens but doubts that he will have time to do the work. Regrets they were ignored at the Royal College of Surgeons; thinks Owen neglected many things because he was overworked.

Thanks BJS for the missionary pamphlet and his good account of the Fuegians.

Is under the care of Andrew Clark, and feels "very old & helpless".

Will be happy to subscribe to support Jemmy FitzRoy Button. Supposes BJS has considered whether it would be a real kindness to educate the boy.

Thanks for account of Fuegians

and news about old "Beaglers".

Has been reading A. A. Brassey [Around the world in the yacht "Sunbeam" (1878)].

The progress of the Fuegians is wonderful.

Sympathises with the "lamentable state" BJS and his family have been in.

Sends £2 for the "Buttonian subscription" [see 9229].

Returns BJS’s Christmas good wishes.

The progress of Tierra del Fuego is almost as wonderful as that of Japan.

Is sorry to hear about Mellersh.

Lends BJS Titus Coan’s Adventures in Patagonia [1880].

Thanks him for copies of the missionary journal.

BJS’s case is one of the direct action of the pollen of one variety on the mother plant of another variety. Gives references to analogous cases.

Thanks for BJS’s account of the Fuegians. CD would have predicted that "not all the missionaries in the world could have done what has been done".

BJS’s grape case is a mystery.

CD is still able to work a little but does not expect to do much more of any interest to naturalists.

The death of his brother [E. A. Darwin] was a heavy loss.