Discusses homologies in various animal groups.

Comments on Mivart [Genesis of species].

Comments on CVR’s book [Third annual report on the noxious, beneficial, and other insects of the State of Missouri (1871)].

Discusses mimetic insects.

Thanks for his election to the Austrian Imperial Academy.

Is sorry ES has suffered in health.

Thanks for the fact about the dog.

Thanks VOK for sending F. Körte’s book [Die Streich-, Zug- oder Wander-Heuschrecke (1828)]. The passage CD wrote about [see 7735] must occur in the second edition. If VOK ever comes upon the 1829 edition, it would be of use to him.

Agrees that the Versailles army has been savagely brutal [in siege of Paris], but thinks the "Communists [Communards] have made themselves everlastingly infamous".

Acknowledges sum of £266 11s. 9d.

Is disappointed at high price, 7s 6d, being considered for the cheap edition of the Origin [6th ed.]. Has been told that, in Lancashire, workmen club together to buy the Origin.

Little chance that Expression will be done this autumn.

Sends subscription for the Index.

FEA’s article ["The intuitional and scientific schools of free religion", Index 15 Apr 1871] is one of the most striking CD has read.

Thanks for FD’s help. CD cannot conceive what Mivart means by "the identity between eyes of Cephalopods and Vertebrata".

Has invited Michael Foster to Down.

Comments on MF’s "little essay" [see 7800].

Invites him to visit.

Directions to Down.

Comments on dubious story involving natural history of Formosa. Suggests that Robert Swinhoe could give an answer.

Thanks GR, who made one of the most wonderful expeditions on record, for some notes which he will consider if he ever has to prepare a new edition [of Descent].

Mentions the difficulties in explaining the separation of sexes and Carl Nägeli’s view that the sexes of plants were primordially distinct.

Has been experimenting for five or six years to demonstrate that the benefits of crossing are the same as those derived from a slight change of conditions.

Thanks LHM for his introductions for CD’s sons and for his instructions about their route [for their U. S. visit].

Thanks FCD for information about eyes [for Expression].

Must interrupt work on the subject to prepare new edition of Origin [6th].

Comments on gift of a new work by FCD [possibly "Die Projection der Gesichtserscheinung nach der Richtungslinien", Arch. Opthalmol. 17 (1871) Abt. 2: 1–68].

Confesses to intense hatred of the bee [orchid] for its anomalous perpetual self-fertilisation.

Thanks JTM for information on ants.

Mentions letter "from a Texas gentleman" Gideon Lincecum describing ants that plant seeds [see 3082].

Notes that fly orchid is unattractive to insects. Asks JTM to attempt fertilisation experiment with this plant.

Invites MF to visit.

Asks where he can obtain curare for plant experiment.

Discusses animal drawing showing expression.