Has made progress [on Variation]. Hopes it will go to press in the autumn. Lists his needs for cuts to be made – altogether 50.

Supposes Origin has ceased selling. Would be sorry to have labour of another edition. A new French edition is wanted.

Did not know that the Arnee had been called a Bubalus.

Thanks for information about shrimps.

Discusses proposed publication of Variation.

Asks to borrow Botanische Zeitung (1860) with Friedrich Alefeld on Pisum [pp. 204–5].

JDH should ask George Busk whether he knows a better doctor than William Jenner "for giving life to a worn out poor devil".

Instructions for Luke Wells about woodcuts for Variation.

Fowl MS has arrived safely.

Sends pigeon MS for WBT’s perusal.

Further instructions for Luke Wells.

Roguery at Kew.

Who wrote reviews of Linnean Society’s Transactions, of Planchon, and of subspecies in Natural History Review [Apr 1865]?

Is rereading Origin for second French edition.

Strelitzia has arrived

but no books or bottles from G. H. K. Thwaites.

Hopes his own judgment about Origin is as good as Hooker’s about his own papers.

Strelitzia’s neat mechanism for exposing pollen.

Thanks for advertisement, and pleased Murray likes title (of Variation).

On Lubbock’s plans.

Visited by Antoine Auguste Laugel.

Guessed right on Bentham’s "Planchon".

Much struck by Thomson’s article on nomenclature [see 4812]; importance of this subject.

Sorry best scientists read so little; few read any long papers.

Congratulates AG on the "grand news of Richmond".

Still interested in dimorphism and would welcome new cases.

Working on Variation

and correcting proofs of Climbing plants.

Would like seed of AG’s dimorphic Plantago.

Cannot understand how the wind could fertilise reciprocally dimorphic flowers.

Feels a little better, but sickness continues.

Wants to borrow Robert Caspary’s paper on the union of buds in Cytisus [see 5012].

On FitzRoy’s life and character.

Carl von Siebold’s cases of males and females of gall insects [True parthenogenesis in moths and bees (1857)]. Each sex produced on different plants.

Haeckel’s astonishing case of propagation in a Medusa.

Thanks FR for copy [of first number] of Der Mensch [1866].

Sends advice on naturalist matters.

W. H. Harvey’s work [with Wilhelm Sonder, Flora capensis (1859–65)],

and Robert Brown’s publication ["On the organs and mode of fecundation in Orchideae and Asclepiadeae", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 16 (1833): 685–745].

Writes of having seen in S. America a Hymenopteran with tarsi covered with pollen-masses of Asclepias.

Interested in JPMW’s researches in South American caverns.

Mentions poor health.

Thanks for tracings.

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

CD and ED bequeath an annuity of £50 to J. Parslow [the Darwins’ butler].

Asks JC to pay him a professional visit at Down to consider whether the ice treatment would apply to his case. Describes his sickness.

Thanks for Catalogue.

Has had a bad month. Somewhat improved as a result of John Chapman’s ice-bag cures.

Asks THH to read MS on his hypothesis Pangenesis. THH only man whose judgment on it would be final with him.

Thanks for THH’s willingness to read Pangenesis MS. Thinks some such view will have to be adopted but it overthrows, in an uncomfortable manner, ordinary development.