Cannot supply a case of atavism in canaries.

Will lend CD back issues of Cottage Gardener.

Cites case of bird (tumbler hen) laying egg in another’s nest.

Much obliged for note from Alexander von Keyserling. Geologist going one inch with CD more important than naturalist going two or three.

It is small comfort to be told you will be succeeded in lineal descent by angels when Lamarck and Darwin have made your ancestors without souls. However, can the progressive system not be seen as most consonant with a higher destiny if all spiritual natures advance? The link of common descent to inferior beings like idiots should be obvious. Infants die before they become responsible. Pope’s An essay on Man [1733] shows how man was "In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast", without speculation on his genealogy.

Has read Origin with pleasure.

Has performed many experiments which confirm his opinion that primrose, oxlip, and cowslip are three distinct species.

Responds to CD’s comments on his review of the Origin. Regrets lack of space often causes him to do injustice to CD and to himself. Agrees to alter some of his statements

and offers some evidence for his opinions on plant hybridising.

Sends references to papers mentioning cave insects. Paussi are not blind, as CD thinks, though some other insects that live in ants’ nests are. Each country over the world has its peculiar species of Paussi, though they all live in ants’ nests. "Physical condition I say – Natural Selection you say".

Is sending CL an arrow-head. Says John Lubbock tells of vast numbers of flint tools in peat in France. Urges CL to conduct further research on the subject.

Comments on paper by J. S. Newberry concerning palaeozoic deposits in America [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 29 (1860): 208–18]

and on A. von Keyserling’s view of species change.

Mentions J. W. Salter’s chart arranging Spirifer.

Comments on Andrew Murray’s paper on the Origin ["On Mr Darwin’s theory of the origin of species", Proc. R. Soc. Edinburgh 4 (1860): 274–91].

A Manchester newspaper article says CD has proved "might is right".

Reports to CD on what he has found out about Elodea growing near Cambridge.

Sedgwick is speaking at [Cambridge] Philosophical Society on CD’s "supposed errors" [Camb. Herald & Huntingdonshire Gaz. 19 May 1860, pp. 3–4].

JSH wonders how Owen can be so savage toward CD’s views when his own are "to a certain extent of the same character".

Thanks for AM’s kindness.

CD did not understand him about "prepotency".

With respect to cave animals CD believes that on reflection AM will admit "that on creation doctrine, there has been surprising diversity for such similar habitation".

Has heard from A. von Keyserling who "makes no difficulty about imperfection of Geological Record".

Future orders will be highly esteemed.

To understand Leschenaultia pollination CD requires field observations in the native country.

Has observed two forms of cowslips, which he calls male and female. The same two forms are found in primroses.

Observations on changes in physical proportions of pigeons.

The Saturday Review of 5 May has a defence of CD and THH by "a jolly good fellow".

Saw Salter’s Spirifer specimens; a very good proof of indefinite modifiability.

Beginning to think gap between Cambrian and Lower Silurian enormous.

Édouard Lartet to give paper before Geological Society ["On coexistence of man with certain extinct quadrupeds", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 16 (1859–60): 471–5].

Comments on Richard Owen’s review of the Origin [in Edinburgh Rev. 111 (1860): 487–532]. Considers Owen unfair to CD and most ungenerous toward Hooker.

Expects Sedgwick to be fierce against him. Sedgwick also misrepresented CD in his Spectator review [24 Mar and 7 Apr 1860].

Compares natural selection to the undulatory theory of light as a hypothesis explaining a large number of facts.

Did not know about separation between Silurian and Cambrian.

Cannot attend Geological Society meeting.

Etty [Henrietta Darwin] ill.

Sedgwick in his attack at Cambridge Philosophical Society states "there must be [on CD’s theory] large genera not varying".

Discusses migration of plants and animals from Old World to New.

Views of Asa Gray on Aster.

Mentions flora of coal period.

Has been elected to Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.

Observations on hybrids from crossed cabbage varieties.

Acknowledges his election as Correspondent of Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.

Thanks WBT for observations on colours of newly-hatched pigeons of different breeds. Asks if breeders have noticed any differences in lengths of time eggs were incubated in different breeds.

Inquires whether "a Devonshire Bee-keeper" [T. W. Woodbury] who reported a common drone entering a hive of Ligurian bees [Cottage Gard. 24 (1860): 94] believes, with Andrew Knight, that queen bees are seldom fertilised by their own blood-relations. Asks how far a hive of common bees was from that of the Ligurians.

Returns reviews of Origin.

F. J. Pictet [Arch. Sci. Phys. & Nat. n.s. 7 (1860): 231–55] goes further than he himself realises.

Naturalists will resist CD’s views until faith in certain "impassable" barriers between existent species is shaken.

Gives CD an instance of convergence.

CD’s divergent series explains those anomalous plants that hover between what would otherwise be two species in a genus.

Inclined to see conifers as a sub-series of dicotyledons that developed in parallel to monocotyledons, but retained cryptogamic characters.

Mentions H. C. Watson’s view of variations.

Man has destroyed more species than he has created varieties.

Variations are centrifugal because the chances are a million to one that identity of form once lost will return.

In the human race, we find no reversion "that would lead us to confound a man with his ancestors".