Thanks for fossil cirripede specimens. Comments on various specimens.

Discusses valves in Scalpellum. Comments on JAHdeB’s research on cirripedes.

Asks JM to forward letter [1525] to Francis Galton "the author of the very interesting volume" Murray recently published.

Thanks for rare Balanus specimens. Asks about their source.

Comments on GJ’s book [Terra Lindisfarnensis (1853)].

Further response to MS of introductory essay to Flora Novae-Zelandiae.

Disbelieving in permanence of species has made little difference to CD in his barnacle work.

Detailed response to MS of introductory essay to [The botany of the Antarctic voyage, pt II] Flora Novae-Zelandiae [1853–5]. CD will curse JDH when, in a year or two, he is at his species book, for "having put so many hostile facts so confoundedly well".

Discusses publication of Fossil Cirripedia.

Comments on paper by JAHdeB ["Les crustacés fossiles du terrain Crétacé du Limbourg", Verh. Uitg. Comm. Geol. Beschrijving & Kaart Ned. 2 (1854): 11–137].

Edward Sabine’s official letter announcing CD’s receipt of Royal Society Medal left him cold. JDH’s informal one moved him.

Applauds JDH for supporting John Lindley.

Comments on MS of JAHdeB’s work ["Crustacés fossiles du Limbourg" (1854)].

Further comments on JAHdeB’s MS.

Thanks JDH for dedication of Himalayan journals. CD praises the work and suggests stylistic revisions.

Lyell’s remarks on lava beds in letter from Madeira are not original – they refer exclusively to Élie de Beaumont’s data.

More praise for Himalayan journals.

How remote was glacial action in Himalayas?

Implies Himalayas were birthplace of many plants.

Final volume of Cirripedia to be printed in two or three months.

CD welcomes the prospect of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society as means for seeing old acquaintances and making new ones. Will try to go up to London regularly.

Admits that the warning from JDH and Asa Gray (that more harm than good will come from combat over the species issue) makes him feel "deuced uncomfortable".

Reflects upon the complexity of Agassiz; how singular that a man of his eminence and immense knowledge "should write such wonderful stuff & bosh".

CD "lectures" JDH on taking care of his health.

CD’s pleasure in London trip.

CD and Emma have taken season tickets to Crystal Palace.

Edward Forbes’s "Introductory Lecture" is the best CD ever read.

CD gives his definition of "highness" and "lowness" as "morphological differentiation" from a common embryo or archetype. JDH’s view, with which CD agrees when it can be applied, is the same as Milne-Edwards’, i.e., the physiological division of labour. There is little agreement among zoologists and CD admits his own lack of clarity.

CD’s view requires only that ancient organisms resemble embryological stages of existing ones. Thus "highness" in plants is difficult to evaluate because they have no larval stages. Would compare highest members of two groups, rather than archetype, to determine which group was higher. Against Forbes’s polarity and parallelism.

Should like to examine the correspondent’s Madeira cirripedes but is too much occupied with other subjects of natural history.

Discusses specimen of Balanus crenatus.

Sorry JP’s children are ill.

Will come to Liverpool if well [for meeting of BAAS].

Sends beetle he cannot identify.

Reading J. O. Westwood [Introduction to the modern classification of insects (1839–40)] has reawakened his passion for entomology.

On individuality.

Huxley’s review exquisite, but too severe on Vestiges; sorry for ridicule of Agassiz’s embryonic fishes.

Stonesfield mammals.

J. O. Westwood deserves Royal Society Medal.

Will begin species work in a few days.