Thinks CD has no need to reply to Samuel Butler’s hostile article [in the Athenæum]. Offers to reply himself.

Returns [Butler’s] attack, which he forgot to send yesterday.

CD advises EK on his proposed letter answering Butler.

Considering the favourable reviews, sale of Erasmus Darwin has been poor.

Birthday greetings.

Regrets Butler’s malicious attack.

Thanks EK for kind letter.

CD’s date on epitaph is a dreadful mistake. CD often overlooks errata.

Agrees not to reply to Butler.

German edition of Erasmus Darwin delayed because Murray has not sent phototypes and galvanographs.

Two of CD’s articles from Nature to appear in April Kosmos ["Sexual colours in butterflies", Collected papers 2: 220–2, Kosmos 7 (1880): 72–4;

"Fertility of hybrids from the Chinese goose", Collected papers 2: 219–20, Kosmos 7 (1880): 77–8].

Moritz Wagner will begin a series criticising natural selection.

Regrets delay of photographs [for German edition of Erasmus Darwin].

Sends German edition of Erasmus Darwin.

[CD’s notes form part of a draft for 12586.]

Glad to receive the German edition of Erasmus Darwin. Hopes sales will be good. Favourable review has appeared in the United States, in the Nation.

No significant reviews of Erasmus Darwin have appeared yet in Germany.

Sends response from a theological opponent.

Thanks EK for two articles about Erasmus Darwin.

Does not think it right that he should receive Kosmos free. Asks for a bill for subscription.

Has not heard from J. Murray if there is any profit on Erasmus Darwin, but "vehementer dubito".

Profit on Erasmus Darwin is £9 15s 5d. Sends cheque. 218 copies remain unsold.

Responds to CD’s offer to pay for subscription to Kosmos.

Comments on his own honorarium for English edition of Erasmus Darwin. Success of German edition.

Has sent 2d ed. of his book, Werden und Vergehen [1880]. Notes that book was attacked in Prussian House of Deputies by ultramontane critics of Hermann Müller who had recommended it to his pupils.

Insists that EK take the profits from the English edition of Erasmus Darwin. EK’s essay is the valuable part of the book; CD’s is mainly gossip.

Thanks CD for copy of Movement in plants. It will be reviewed in Kosmos [8 (1880–1): 258–71] by Hermann Müller.

Kosmos will probably cease publication. Publisher has decided to sell.

Fritz Müller has suffered from flood.

Müller’s latest letter contains a polemic against Wagner’s migration theory,

and some interesting observations on Crustacea.

Bad news about Kosmos [ceasing publication].

Fritz Müller’s losses [in a flood]; "I have long looked on him as the best observer in the world."

EK’s astonishing account of crustacean that repairs its legs in an ancestral form seems to support Pangenesis, which has hardly any friends.

Comments on Pangenesis. Quotes long passage from article by Fritz Müller concerning regeneration of lost members among crustaceans.

Kosmos has been sold to Eduard Koch in Stuttgart; will be converted into a weekly. Science will be de-emphasised. Krause seeking new publisher to continue on old basis.

Gustav Jäger injured in train accident.

Would like to reply to Samuel Butler’s Unconscious memory [1880] in Kosmos.