Thanks for JSH’s letter, which has been of real use.

Complains of the trouble caused by reports to Government required of Benefit Clubs.

Interested in case of Canada geese with seed in crop, because means of distribution is now a great hobby.

Inquires about a Mr Smith, who might prove helpful "in the domestic bird line".

Alphonse de Candolle’s Géographie botanique [raisonnée (1855)] strikes him as a wonderful, admirable work.

Writes of WED’s progress at school and events at home.

Discusses pigeons, with which he is "getting on splendidly".

JL is studying Cynipidae. CD sends galls for his examination.

Thanks for copy of HS’s Principles of psychology [1855].

Mustering support at Royal Society Council for John Lindley’s Copley Medal. CD thinks Albany Hancock deserves a Royal Medal.

CD asks whether New Zealand tribes have an idea of beauty in women which is "like ours"; WBDM answers, "Yes".

Invites him to visit. JDH and one or two others coming.

Congratulations on JL’s marriage. Invitation to dine at Down with the Hookers, Huxleys, and T. V. Wollaston.

Adds comments to a list of Cape of Good Hope plants which are also European and gives some additions to the list [see Natural selection, p. 552].

Lyell urges CD to publish a sketch of species theory; CD asks JDH’s opinion on best course.

Concerned about opposition, particularly by Owen, to Huxley’s admission to Athenaeum.

CD is unsure about JDH’s recommendation that he publish a separate "Preliminary Essay". It is unphilosophical to publish without full details.

CD will work for Huxley’s admission to Athenaeum.

Huxley’s "vehement" [Royal Institution?] Lectures make it difficult to propose him for Athenaeum.

CD (and Emma) had a good laugh over JDH’s mortified response to a misinterpretation (in print) concerning his position on multiple creation.

Queries from CD on the distribution of molluscan genera referring to SPW’s Manual of the Mollusca [pt 3 (1856)], with SPW’s answers.

Wishes to borrow fly pincers for his son George.

Discusses T. V. Wollaston’s book on insect variation [On the variation of species (1856)].

Do the plants that are common to Europe and North America nearly all live north of the Arctic Circle? CD bases his question on HCW’s "capital" comparison between relations of Europe to North America and Europe to E. Asia if the intervening land had been submerged. CD has been led to speculate that in the mid-Pliocene the organisms now living in middle Europe and northern U. S. lived within the Arctic Circle. Subsequent movements of this flora with advance and retreat of glaciers would explain present distribution better than Forbes’s vast submergences.

Smallpox in the village. Death of Joseph Parslow’s son.

Sends a cultivated specimen of Myosotis (first generation) grown from seed sent by JSH. Asks for a tuft of flower.

Hopes JSH will publish a book on teaching botany, because he has no idea how to begin with his children.