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.

Writes regarding CD’s query on yellow-billed cuckoo and the laying of eggs in other birds’ nests.

States his belief that there is a tendency to note varieties in the larger genera rather than in the very small ones.

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.

Summary of JDH’s objections to CD’s survey of floras and conclusion that large genera vary more than small.

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

Continued objections to methods and conclusions of CD’s survey.

Discusses the ranges of species in large and small genera; difficulties involved in limiting the discussion to Britain.

Extracts from MS of vol. 4 of HCW’s Cybele Britannica [1847–59] showing the diversity of views on species among botanists.

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.

List of close species taken from AG’s Manual of botany [1848].

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.

A set of questions CD prepared for his meeting with WHM to discuss the geometry of bees’ cells.

Bees’ cells; GRW thinks hexagonal shape is accidental. Encloses notes on cells of Icaria.