Praises Lady Smith for developing new method for copying paper portraits, discusses further. Remembers Corrêa [de Serra] well and often listened to him at Sir Joseph Banks'. A York bookseller will get him Smith's "Grammar of Botany" and ["A selection of the correspondence of Linnaeus..."] when published.

Mild winter: does not remember a milder one, thermometer has not been lower than 31°F and fears vegetation will "suffer from being too far forward"; peach buds are swelling and cucumbers are in rough leaf. Snow at Gordon Castle in last few days, received two plants of 'Menziesia caerulea' procured from Inverness, one placed in bog earth with 'Rhodendra' and other potted and both look well so far. Duke of Gordon also sent quill feathers of the supposed female woodcock, enclosed [not extant]; has written to Ireland for further opinion.

Had rent day yesterday and remitted 10 per cent on land, "such are the bad times for farmers that I rather think I did too little, however they were well pleased". Requests recommendation for more recent "Genera plantarum" than Linnaei 1767. Encloses his pamphlet [extant] titled "On the Winchester Bushel", which "has nearly given the finishing stroke to our Country bushel".

Will endeavour to profit by Smith's "Grammar of Botany" and though glad he has explained [Antoine Laurent de] Jussieu's system will not bother to learn it as he does not find it "more natural" and there are irreconcilables in it. Praises the book's dedication.

Has written on identification of sex of woodcocks and commissioned a nephew in Dublin for opinion of Irish sportsmen; does not recall his authority for male's exterior quill feather to be barred the whole length, but the Irish think the male is larger, has most white at the edge, yellow legs, and a much darker head and neck, and the female dark slate coloured legs. Duke of Gordon's confirmation by examining supposed male "saw the testicles most distinctly".

He has two peach trees "just now showing their habitual excitability" which had just been transplanted out from glass to the open and protected them with oiled paper frames. His son's address whilst attending Parliament.

His weekly fish from Hartlepool, [Yorkshire], just come in, including more than 2lb 1/2 of whitings but often have them as large, and has lately had smelts more than 10 inches long.

Collates inconclusive evidence from his nephew, Edward Frankland, when in Dublin, and Duke of Gordon, as to indicators of sex of woodcocks. Two feathers sent by Edward Frankland inclosed [extant].

Two woodcock feathers.

Reliable account, from one of his labourers, of a hedgehog sucking udder of a cow, who 30 years ago whilst walking to work at 4 in the morning saw a cow stand up and a hedgehog fall from its udder. [Thomas] Bewick [(1753-1828), ornithologist] does not comment on this disposition whilst [Thomas] Pennant argues against it on account of smallness of the hedgehog's mouth; will ascertain this by measuring.

Feelings increasingly frail in mind and body, especially his legs, and has not been angling or worked in his workshop for sometime, and last year's shooting ended his sporting life. Received Banksian medal from Horticultural Society for his Green Egyptian melons. His son and daughter-in-law are creating a flower garden in the wood.

Read [Thomas] Rackett's "Linnean Transactions" paper on red viper ['Observations on a Viper found in Cranborne Chace, Dorsetshire' (1819)] and recalls a memorandum he gave Sir Joseph Banks 30 years ago on how as a boy, five miles from Newbury, [Berkshire], he saw "a small serpent with a red belly" the length of slow worm bite a greyhound, which survived but had an extremely swollen neck in morning. Considered it to be a sort of slow worm and suggested the name 'Coluber chersea', the memorandum will be in Banks' loose notices.