Sends a list of plants with stamps to pay the Hitcham girls who will collect seeds for him.

Describes his work with seeds in salt water.

For his experiments he would like seeds collected from plants that grow both near Hitcham and in the Azores.

Explains again what JSH should do in marking "close species".

Reports success of seed-soaking experiments. Celery and onion germinate after 85 days’ immersion.

Has named 35 species of grasses.

Seed-salting continues.

Thanks JSH for seeds.

Clarifies his request about marking [London] catalogue [of British plants] – JSH is to mark those he thinks really are species, but which are very closely allied to some other species.

Asks GRW if there is any easy systematic work on Lepidoptera for his sons. Considers making out the names from descriptions fine practice for the intellect; mere collecting is idle work.

Asks for advice on establishing a control group in his experiments to produce sports and varieties of Lychnis diurna.

Seeks seeds of wild Dianthus for hybridising and producing varieties.

Sends a list of 22 plants that grow at Hitcham and in the Azores and are, according to H. C. Watson, least likely to have been imported [by man]. Will pay the little girls of Hitcham liberally to collect the seeds for his experiments.

CD experiments: sowing seeds in fields; "breaking" seeds’ constitution with coloured light; plant hybridisation. Compiling works on hybridism.

Respect for W. B. Carpenter.

Note on "nectar secreting" to Gardeners’ Chronicle [Collected papers 1: 258–9].

CD has more specimens of Helix pomatia.

Thanks for Lepidoptera book.

Invites JL to dinner.

Has read a paper, presumably by JDH, using the Madeiran flora to argue against Forbes’s doctrine.

JDH asked how far CD will go in attributing common descent; he intends to show "the facts & arguments for & against the common descent of species of same genus; & then show how far the same arguments tell for or against forms, more & more widely different".

Parcels sent to Down by coach may get lost.

Congratulations to JL on finding musk-ox fossil.

Reports on observing hive-bees visiting the leaves of vetch and bean and sucking the minute drops of nectar secreted by the glands on the underside of the stipulae. This phenomenon proves wrong those botanists who believe nectar to be a special secretion for the sole purpose of luring insects to visit flowers and thus to aid in their fertilisation.

If AAG is no longer member of the Ray Society, CD would like to send copy of Living Cirripedia, vol. 2.

Geographical distribution. "Close" species. Hopes AG will write an essay on species.

Thanks JSH for all he has done. His botanical little girls are marvellous. His marking of the list of dubious species is what CD wanted. Explains that he wanted to ascertain whether closely allied forms belong to large or small genera.

Describes his method of putting young poultry to death.

Asks questions arising from WDF’s reply about crossed mongrels.

Mentions RH’s book on light [Researches on light in its chemical relations, 2d ed. (1854)]. Asks about coloured glass used in experiments on plants.

Invites JSH to dine at CD’s brother’s house in London.

Delighted JSH can dine. Has invited Hooker.

Thanks him for Lychnis seed.

Asks for umbel of wild celery. Wants to ascertain whether wild or tame plants produce most seed.