Will visit CD on Saturday.

Sir George Clerk to be new President of the Zoological Society.

Hopes CD will come to lunch on Saturday. The Busks and J. D. Hooker are with JL.

JL is going on a geological excursion with Joseph Prestwich and John Evans.

Thanks for Orchids.

"The big book [Variation] will no doubt go on again now."

JL is writing on Somme implements ["Evidence of antiquity of man", Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 244–69].

Leonard Darwin’s illness.

William Darwin and the bank.

Beginning to make out a marvellous case of trimorphism.

JL’s Swiss tour with Tyndall and Huxley.

Lake-habitations.

Hive-bees and clover.

CD was in error about bees’ behaviour at clover.

Finds JL’s facts on the diving insect that remains four hours under water new and interesting [see "On two aquatic Hymenoptera", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 24 (1864): 135–42].

Would like JL to call.

CD’s health is bad.

Would like to visit CD on Friday.

Hopes to be well enough on Friday to see JL.

Several of the family have had influenza.

Hopes to visit tomorrow if CD is up to it.

Thinks Bates’s paper on mimetic butterflies ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566], is very good; would appreciate an article on it from CD ["On mimetic butterflies", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1863): 219–24; Collected papers 2: 87–92].

H. W. Bates’s paper; CD will review it. ["Mimetic butterflies" (1863), Collected papers 2: 87–92.]

Thanks CD for agreeing to review Bates’s paper for Natural History Review.

Praises JL’s article ["North American archaeology", Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 3 (1863): 1–26]

and Hugh Falconer on the American fossil elephant [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 3 (1863): 43–114].

Is pleased by CD’s praise of his article.

Hugh Falconer’s is certainly interesting.

Dining arrangements.