At Asa Gray’s request, responds to CD’s questions about WMC’s observations on Dionaea and particularly about the size of the insects captured and the excitability of the leaves after an insect is captured.

He does not accept Wallace’s definition of instinct because it excludes "inherited experience", i.e., "knowledge acquired by and transmitted through ancestors".

House-flies do not seem to have an instinctive fear of trap-door spiders.

Miss Forster gives him news of CD.