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

Asks if dirt adheres to feet of water-birds.

Reports catching a landrail on board ship.

Encloses drawings of insects caught at sea.

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.

W&N have not yet received the German edition of the Origin.

Recommend French–English and French dictionaries.

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".

Has studied CD’s Jamaican hive-bees and finds them identical to Apis mellifica.

Discusses the structure of wasps’ and bees’ nests

and the occurrence of winged and apterous individuals within some insect genera and species.

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

Sketch and description of a [wasp’s] nest from Cuba. [Notes by CD on wasps’ nests and comb-building habits of hive-bees.]

Facts and inferences relating to different varieties of sweetpeas.

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.

CD elected correspondent of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.

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’s observations on curved styles read well. JDH seeks morphological rationale of curvature in the position of nectaries.

He has avoided lecturing to Royal Family’s children at Buckingham Palace.