Thanks LJ for Memoir of Henslow; thinks it will be invaluable as an example to other clergymen.

Pleased with CD’s opinion of the Henslow Memoir [L. Jenyns, Memoir of the Rev. John Stevens Henslow (1862)]

Asks LJ which British birds are polygamous. His query relates to the possession by the male of secondary sexual characters.

CD is also interested in the numerical proportion of the sexes in birds.

Asks about the use of the horns in male lamellicorn or coprophagous beetles.

On polygamous birds and the pairing of birds. Late singing of males. [see Descent 2: 107.]

Thanks LJ for his useful facts. Will "look to" the reference about the nightingale.

Sends his notes on Florent Prévost’s reference to the habits of the cuckoo.

Thanks LB for his essay on local biology.

CD with much care and discomfort is now able to work a few hours almost every day.

Congratulates CD on testimonials from the savants of Germany and the Netherlands [Nature 15 (1877): 356, 410–12] and generally on his contributions to biology.

Asks if and when CD’s "Variability of organic beings in a state of nature", as projected in 1868 [see Variation 1: 4] is to appear.

CD doubts that he will be able to do much more that is new, but cannot bear idleness. Has great amount of material on variation under nature, but so much has been published since the appearance of the Origin that he doubts he has the power of mind to render the mass into a digested whole.