Gives an extract from L. von Buch on the flora of the Canaries [Physikalische Beschreibung der Canarische Inseln (1825)].

Natural selection does not explain why animals of different groups in the same place often resemble each other.

No summary available.

Cannot accept invitation at present.

Is sending a wild honeycomb from Timor.

Acknowledges Orchids with its disclosures of "wonderful adaptations".

Warns that CD aids critics by overstating the difficulties.

Did Owen write the article in the Quarterly Review? [Review of Origin by Samuel Wilberforce, Q. Rev. 108 (1860): 225–64].

Muscular fibres of whale no larger than those of bee – evidence of a community of origin.

Problem of the abortive wings of ostrich in relation to conditions of their survival.

Would be pleased to have third edition of Origin.

Is unwell and dreads the winter.

Acknowledges 3d edition of Origin.

Praise of Herbert Spencer’s First Principles [1862].

Health.

Is sending information about Timor fossils to be forwarded to Hugh Falconer.

Now recalls a Melastoma visited by some small Cetoniadae and bees (Xylocopa) in Malay Archipelago.

Encloses flowers of Melastoma from Singapore.

Acclimatisation of plants.

Striped horses in London.

Bees’ cells; has been promised information from the East.

Remarks on ARW’s review of Samuel Haughton’s paper on bees’ cells

and Origin.

Agassiz’s strength as geologist and weakness in natural history theory.

Work problems.

His butterfly collection.

Problems with book on Malay journey.

Recommends Herbert Spencer and his Social statics.

Spencer’s "masterly" nebular hypothesis.

On the Borneo cave exploration.

ARW will send his contribution to theory of origin of man. The vast mental and cranial differences between man and apes, whereas structural differences in other parts of body are small. The problem of explaining diversity of human races along with the stability of man’s form during all historical epochs. Discussion with "Anthropologicals" [following reading of ARW’s paper, "The origin of human races", before the Anthropological Society, 1 Mar 1864].

Argues the antiquity of the human species because natural selection acts differently with respect to men. Changes in man are largely confined to head and brain. Warfare and sex are very uncertain as means of selection.

Gives CD complete credit for theory of natural selection.

Is beginning his narrative of his travels.

Lyell argues against tracing man as far back as Miocene times. R. I. Murchison’s argument that Africa is the oldest existing land implies that Africa is the place to look for early man.

His distress that his engagement has been broken off.

Sends copies of two papers ["On the parrots of the Malayan region", Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1864): 279–97;

"On the physical geography of the Malay Archipelago", J. R. Geogr. Soc. 33 (1863): 217–34].

Sends papers with comments. Convinced that the Aru pig is a species peculiar to New Guinea fauna, not a domestic animal that ran wild.

Admires CD’s paper ["Three forms of Lythrum", Collected papers 2: 106–31].

Thanks CD for paper ["Climbing plants"].

Reports case of variation becoming at once hereditary – a crested blackbird with crested young.

Information concerning improvements in the Reader under new sponsorship.

Current reading and work [on pigeons for Ibis 1 (1865): 365–400, and catalogue of his collection of birds].

Book of travels postponed indefinitely.

Looks forward to reading Variation.

Explains how two or more female forms occur in one species through selection. The physiological problem remains of how each produces offspring like the other without intermediates. Is not CD’s case of varieties that will not blend the physiological test of a species needed for "complete proof of the origin of species"?

"Travels" postponed.

Lengthy analysis of sources of misunderstanding of natural selection. Advocacy of Spencer’s term "survival of the fittest" instead of "Natural Selection". ARW urges CD to stress frequency of variations.

Thanks CD for 4th ed. of Origin.

Discusses abnormal sexual characters produced by mimicry. ARW’s papers on the subject.

Agassiz’s "marvellous" Amazonian glacier theory.