Sorry JJW cannot visit.

Will go to sea-side for five weeks at end of July.

Does Vidua have double annual moult? [See Descent 2: 181.]

Invites JJW to visit Down. Will try to get A. R. Wallace and H. W. Bates also.

Enjoyed JJW’s visit.

Interested in changes in plumage of pheasants.

Still at work on sexual selection in birds.

Comments on paper by JJW ["On insects and insectivorous birds", Trans. R. Entomol. Soc. Lond. (1869): 21–6]. JJW’s verification of A. R. Wallace’s suggestion regarding inheritance is quite a discovery.

Asks for information about male birds migrating before females.

Thanks for information about bird migration.

Comments on canary hybridisation.

"My health got so bad I could do nothing at Down".

Gives information about migration of male and female birds.

On birds erecting feathers.

Comments on production of buds in Cytisus.

Discusses case of rabbit-breeding which affected subsequent progeny of female.

"Like you I have often wondered at the different food of the old and young, as with graminivorous birds feeding their young with insects."

Recommends forthcoming book by John Lubbock [Monograph of the Collembola and Thysanura (1873)].

Not surprised incipient disease in female would make her unattractive to male.

Sorry JJW’s official duties are so heavy.

Thanks for new case.

Not very well.

Has no doubt he will find JJW’s address interesting.

Thinks same spot for nesting might prove attractive to birds, though they had had no intercommunication.

Discusses case of Cytisus graft described by JJW.

Regarding Cytisus graft with yellow flowers, CD thinks nurseryman has sold Cytisus adami to JJW’s brother in place of C. purpureus. This explains apparent "sport". [P.S. on envelope:] C. purpureus seeds freely. C. adami never does.

JJW is to think no more about mistake [regarding Cytisus graft].

Declines invitation to accompany JJW to Crystal Palace.

Comments on JJW’s observations on mule

and hermaphroditism in hybrid moths.