Discusses the direction of WED’s studies.

Tells of the response to the Origin and the impact that it has made in England and abroad.

Responds to JL’s comments on effect of natural selection on grouse or reindeer.

Asks if dirt adheres to feet of water-birds.

Lyell and CD would urge JDH to make his essays into a book, but see he has embarked on a huge project with G. Bentham [Genera plantarum, 3 vols. (1862–83)].

Asks if JP can send criticism of Origin.

JDH coming to Down. Huxley will be invited.

Thanks HGB [for his Morphologische Studien (1858)].

Pleased at quickness of translation.

Comments on QdeB’s [Études sur les maladies actuelles du ver à soie (1860)].

Has failed to find French publisher for Origin.

Reminds JSH to send "sketch & account of the wasp’s comb in transitional state from horizontal to vertical, & the country whence procured".

Asks for information on spread of Anacharis [Elodea].

Sedgwick [in criticism of Origin] was not very fair, but Murray says it is splendid for selling copies to "the unfortunate students".

Comments enthusiastically on WBC’s review ["The theory of development in nature", Br. & Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev. 25 (1860): 367–404].

Asks for information about Anacharis.

Has received copies of translation of Origin. Thanks HGB for undertaking it.

Comments on review by F. J. Pictet ["Sur l’origine de l’espèce, par Charles Darwin: analyse et critique",Arch. Sci. Phys. & Nat. n.s. 7 (1860): 231–55].

Sends a letter concerning priority [of Patrick Matthew] for JDH to read and post.

Angered at Owen’s review.

Huxley’s Royal Institution lecture ends well.

Discusses crosses in sweetpeas and the difference between monstrosities and slight variations. Discusses peloric flowers.

Thanks for correction about furze.

What a base dog Owen is for praising his own work in reviewing Origin [anonymously].

J. H. Balfour is narrow-minded.

CD cannot understand pollination of Goodenia.

CD intrigued by the pollination mechanism of Leschenaultia formosa.

CD interested in Thomas Bell’s rumour that Owen avows his review.

Curved styles and their relation to pollination.

Sends list of plants with asymmetry in nectar-secreting surfaces and pistils bent in that direction. Shows insect agency so important that structure has changed. Asks for contrary or confirming examples and that request be passed on to Daniel Oliver.

JDH has settled the Leschenaultia case, but it remains a difficulty to CD.

Goodenia, like bee orchid, seems a case of a structure with an evident function, which is not carried out. Is curvature of styles an incidental result of growth or a pollination adaptation?

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.

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.

Dissection of Leschenaultia convinces CD insect agency necessary for self-fertilisation in this case.

Primroses and cowslips seem universally to occur in two forms. Very curious to see which plants set seed.