Thanks for the information about the passages in Xenophon and Horace.

Thanks BvC for the present of his book, Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus.

Comments on notes by JC-B on relation between blushing and mental disturbance. Asks for further information about blushing. "The single pencil line down this MS is my mark that I have used it once."

Thanks for "dreadful photo of the imbeciles".

Obliged for letter about dog.

Comments on HH’s article ["Zur Geschlechtsbestimmung", Bot. Ztg. 29 (1871): 81–9, 97–109].

"If you feel astonished at my bringing man & brutes so near together in their whole nature (though with a wide hiatus) I feel still more astonished, as I believe, at your judgment on this head. I much wish you had enlarged your concluding sentence a little so as to say whether you consider the ordinary mental faculties so distinct, or whether you confine the enormous difference to spiritual powers including the moral sense.––"

Detailed questions about illustrations for [forthcoming] Expression.

Asks whether Times review has hurt sales of Descent.

The type on specimen page of Origin [6th ed.] seems clear, but lines are close. The cost is the great point for a wide circulation.

Please thank Mr Jackson for facts about shrugging, but case not distinct enough. Gestures associated with laughter. Platysma.

Case of the reasoning bear is analogous to the elephant blowing with trunk to bring object within reach.

Gives permission for the photographer to come to Down, but states that O. J. Rejlander has recently taken several photographs of him which would be available to purchasers.

Asks JM to lend him his copy of 1st edition (1806) of Charles Bell’s Anatomy of expression.

JM should tell him when he wants new cheap edition of Origin, so he can arrange his plans and time.

Corrections for Descent. Has sold 6500 copies in England.

Has finished rough draft of Expression, but will put it aside for the summer.

Will refresh himself with some curious observations on the response of plants to certain stimuli.

Condolence on death of HJ’s daughter; "I know from old experience how bitter a loss it is".

Thanks for information about intelligence of dog.

Thanks HN for photographs of his ears and one showing the form of the ears in a foetal orang. He will show them to a wood-engraver when a new edition of Descent is called for [see Descent, 2d ed., p. 17].

Has read the Field review of Descent ["Darwin on the descent of man", 37 (1871): 210]. Thanks WBT for his remarks.

Thanks for EJP’s suggestion that it is fascination rather than aesthetic appreciation that drives sexual selection.

Replies to Francis Galton’s paper on tranfusing blood between rabbits to test Pangenesis [Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 19 (1871): 393–40]. FG’s conclusion that his experiments prove Pangenesis to be false is "a little hasty", since CD had never maintained that gemmules in the blood formed any part of his hypothesis.

Requesting information about the publication history of Lavater 1820.

Thanks for FTK’s locust paper ["Die geographische Verbreitung der Wanderheuschrecke", Petermann’s Geogr. Mittheil. (1871)].

Discusses action of the platysma in a state of fear.

Is sending copy of Descent.

Thanks for copy of WP’s book [Die Blutkrystalle (1871)].

Discusses shape of external ear.