Honoured by Abutilon name; describes observations on its fertilisation.

Henrietta’s marriage a great loss to him.

Latest Quarterly Review has article, "evidently by Mivart", that cuts CD into mincemeat.

Asks for name of species of mouse J. S. Henslow used to keep [see 598].

Thanks for information about Henslow’s mouse.

Asks [EAD] to get signatures as opportunity offers.

Has read Thomson’s address with "greatest interest", but JDH has said exactly what he [CD] thinks of it.

Herschel’s was a good sneer. It made him add the Raphael Madonna simile in Descent [2: 142].

CD’s comments on proofs of JL’s book [Monograph of the Collembola and Thysanura (1873)].

Is preparing a new edition of Origin [6th ed. (1872)] and asks GB for information on the gradations between the vibracula and avicularia of the Polyzoa and on what he bases his opinion concerning the homology of the avicularium with the zooid.

Wants to sell some shares held in trust by EAD and Josiah Wedgwood [III].

Agrees to have his name on the list of naturalists to whom annual report [on zoological station] should be sent.

His health has been very bad for last six weeks.

Discusses exchange of books.

CW’s pamphlet [Darwinism (1871)] nearly ready. Friends have been much struck by it but say several passages rather obscure.

Glad CW coming to England. Will be delighted to see him at Down.

Obliged for letter about appendages on faces of goats.

Is preparing new edition of Origin [6th] in which he will introduce new chapter to answer Mivart’s criticisms. Mivart is unfair: suppresses facts in CD’s later editions.

Sends article [by Chauncey Wright, see 7940] reviewing Genesis of species.

Mivart writes to CD full of respect, but reviles him in print.

Obliged for note and sketch [of goat appendages].

Sends a reprint of Chauncey Wright’s article ["Darwinism", North Am. Rev. 113 (1871): 63–103].

Sends proofs of Huxley’s article on Mivart, to be published in Contemporary Review ["Mr Darwin’s critics", 18 (1871): 443–76].

Sorry to hear of JDH’s troubles;

pleased he thinks so highly of Huxley’s article [see 7977].

Huxley makes CD feel infantile in intellect (as JDH once said of himself). CD is not so good a Christian as JDH thinks, for he did enjoy his revenge on Mivart.

"I should expect that the period of gestation will differ very little in the individuals of the same species, as long as its conditions of life remained the same. But I doubt whether it is sure as an absolute criteria; for although little or nothing on this field can be known with respect to species in a state of nature, yet with races of the same species as with dogs and cattle, the period is known slightly to differ. In the generation of seeds from the same capsule there is often the most wonderful and inexplicable difference in the periods".

First six chapters [of Origin, 6th ed.] sent to printer.

Thanks ACR for papers.

Glad present situation of our continents has been confirmed.

Wishes ACR would prove his view of origin of Red Sandstones, which many dispute.

"Like you I have often wondered at the different food of the old and young, as with graminivorous birds feeding their young with insects."

Recommends forthcoming book by John Lubbock [Monograph of the Collembola and Thysanura (1873)].