On papilionaceous flowers and CD’s theory that there are no eternal hermaphrodites. Connects this theory to absence of small-flowered legumes in New Zealand and the absence of small bees as pollinators.

CD has never doubted probability of Bering Strait land connection.

Family illness.

Mrs Henslow’s death stirs reminiscences of happier days.

Returns books by Candolle and Robert Brown.

Six volumes of Candolle’s Prodromus confirm rule that small genera vary less than large. Labiatae an exception to rule.

Writes of domestic matters

and asks WED to observe cart-horses for traces of dark stripes on spine and cross-stripes on shoulder.

General success of survey makes CD very concerned about sources of error. Wants to meet JDH for an important talk about big genera. Arranges meeting.

CD and J. D. Hooker have differed on the following question and agreed to ask several botanists: would a good botanist describing a local flora record varieties as readily in large as in small genera?

Fertilisation of clover by bees in New Zealand.

Uneasy about biggest genera and their varieties.

H. T. Buckle’s sophistry [History of civilisation in England (1857)].

Working on bees’ cells.

CD intends to enter WED at Christ’s College.

Thanks him for inquiries made about horses.

JDH has confirmed CD’s opinion on the affinities of species in great genera. Is looking at large genera in several local Floras to find the "range & commonness of varying species".

Has been "beyond measure interested" in the construction instincts of the hive-bee.

Notes views of Hooker and George Bentham on monotypic forms.

Has tabulated several floras and finds that large genera show preponderance in numbers of varieties. Now sees his results are quite worthless.

C. C. Babington agrees with JDH that botanists tend to note varieties more in large genera than in very small ones.

Four queries regarding the habits of bees and ants with answers by FS interlined between each query.

Heartened that tabulations of small and large genera done in different ways yield good results. JDH has done some tabulations but has not followed CD’s method of getting equal numbers of small and large genera.

JDH’s "objection" that small local genera do not vary and mundane ones do, is exactly CD’s point. Local floras useful to test idea that varieties are incipient species. Same genus in different countries cannot be lumped.

Thanks JDH for his objections; will respond by sending fair copy of MS when written.

Comments and criticisms on JL’s paper [possibly: "On the development of Chloëon dimidiatum", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 24 (1863): 61–78].

Writing section on large and small genera [for Natural selection, ch. 4].

Huxley supersedes Owen on parthenogenesis.

Buckle’s History of civilisation in England extremely interesting.

Asa Gray’s criticism of Buckle and his comments on large and small genera.

CD suspects glacial epoch immensely long. Rates of organic change too variable to make them a good measure of geological time.

Bees’ cells are a difficulty for theory.