Discusses publication of Descent. Orders copies of vol. 2 sent to Wallace, Mivart, and F. P. Cobbe.

Will attend Athenaeum and vote for RC.

JC-B’s MS most useful.

P. Gratiolet’s observations on contraction and dilation of pupils of eye of a person in extreme terror. Has JC-B ever observed this? Expression has been his hobby-horse for 30 years.

Sends corrections for French edition of Descent.

Thanks HHHvZ for a memoir

and answers some queries;

mentions some corrections for his Dutch translation of Descent.

Receipt for payment by John Murray of £630 for the first edition, consisting of 2500 copies, of Descent.

Will send F. Du Cane Godman’s book [Natural history of the Azores (1870)] as soon as he returns home.

Thanks for verses on Origin and Descent.

Thanks for two reviews of Descent. Second is "most fair, kind and carefully abstracted".

Suggests sending his book [Descent?] to Popular Science Review.

Thinks JT’s discovery of a glycerine respirator is an interesting practical discovery. CD has been wondering about the hairs in our nostrils, but doubts that JT has explained their function, since there are hardly enough.

Will ask W. Ogle to observe hairs in nostrils of different races.

Says Descent is "selling like Mad.––" Murray will print another 1500 or 2000 copies. Has received £630 for the 2500.

On Monday he visited Mivart, who is a charming man.

He seemed to be taken aback by CD’s points about the larynx and giraffe.

[See 7507 and 7519.]

He seemed to have forgotten CD’s argument regarding the formation of the greyhound.

Discussed the larynx and the silence of the Cetaceans.

If FD mentions any of this to [Marlborough Robert] Pryor, ask him not to mention it to anyone else "as it is perhaps rather a breach of confidence to repeat even to friends private conversation."

Discusses new edition of Descent.

Ogle will keep JT’s suggestion in mind in observing less hairy races of man and the lower animals.

Asks JT whether he can help Ogle on a troublesome point on the colour of tissues with olfactory nerves, and the relation of colour to the absorption of odours. Does JT’s respirator deprive odorous substances of their smell?

Ogle is unacquainted with JT; would be proud and pleased to call on him. CD likes what little he has seen of him.

Was aware of Maine’s view but never thought of its extension to morals. Cannot avoid thinking that personal property like flint tools must have "strictly belonged to individuals as much as a bone to a dog".

Invites him to visit.

Miss Butler is dead.

Comments on Descent.

EH’s refusal of position at Vienna.

Admits pointer illustration is faulty.

Discusses shame, remorse, social instincts, approbation, and other topics discussed in Descent, ch. 4. "But as yet I nail my colours to the mast."

Asks for a drawing from life of a "laughing monkey" (Cynopithecus niger) for Expression [p. 136].

Has forwarded FDuCG’s book [Natural history of the Azores (1870)] to Dr Hartlaub.

Asks about eyes of camel when the animal is uttering a loud sound.