Thanks him for plant specimens.

Asks about sowing Drosera seeds.

Sends fruit of date-palm which has not been impregnated by pollen from a male.

Has read Origin, which "puts everything straight".

Sends an example of natural selection: survival of water-buffalo eating Indian corn submerged by flooding might depend on how long animal could keep nose under water. Encloses measurements of this behaviour.

Forwards a copy of the Student’s Magazine, which contains the first of a series of articles on CD and his work.

Doubts that "the same well-characterized species should be produced in two distinct countries, or at two distinct times".

Neither he nor [Francis Darwin] intends publishing on inheritance.

They are working on physiology of plants [Movement in plants], but will not print for a year.

Thinks JVC’s new journal [Zoologische Anzeiger] will be of great use to students of zoology.

Thanks for CD’s support for [Epping Forest] appointment. Doubts about the proposed management.

Comments on FBW’s paper ["Hemipterous fauna of St Helena", Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1878): 444–77].

Thanks EBA for the copy of the Student’s Magazine.

Observations on insectivorous plants.

Thanks CD for his efforts to get HM’s book, Die Befruchtung der Blumen [1873], translated into English. [See Fertilisation of flowers, translated by D’Arcy W. Thompson, preface by C. Darwin (1883).]

Will soon return to his observations on insects in general and bees in particular.

Thanks WCM for plant.

Mentions "your new room" at Down.

Urges publication of an exposure of Williams the spiritualist medium.