Forwards H. T. Stainton letter for reply.

Finds many Cucurbita have tendrils with sticking ends.

The "potentiality of so many organs in plants to play so many parts is one of the most wonderful of your discoveries . . . one day it will itself play a prodigious part in the interpretation of both morphological and physiological facts".

Is disgusted with Sabine’s address [see 4708] because of its mutilation of what JDH wrote.

THH’s slashing leader in Reader ["Science and ""Church policy"" ", 4 (1864): 821] – as usual he destroys all in his path.

Encloses letter from G. H. K. Thwaites with a message for CD [see encl].

Bentham wants "Climbing plants" for Journal of the Linnean Society, however long [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 9 (1865): 1–118]. Publication in Proceedings of the Royal Society restricts correspondence.

Reader much improved.

Tyndall did write piece on spiritualism ["Science and the spirits", Reader 4 (1864): 725–6].

"Suppressed gout" annoys him as a term cloaking ignorance.

Cannot come until week from Saturday.

Worked to death by Genera plantarum.

John Scott has arrived in Calcutta and has been given an appointment by Thomas Anderson.

Falconer’s illness and suffering. His great ability and knowledge.

CD’s paper ["Climbing plants"] went extremely well [at Linnean Society]. M. T. Masters and Bentham commented.

Why botanists will not subscribe to Falconer’s bust with enthusiasm.

Scott has been offered curatorship at Calcutta Botanic Garden.

Will arrive Saturday [4 Mar] on afternoon train.

Thomas Thomson has gone over Scott’s paper; encloses his conclusions. Not fit for publication in present form. His experiments should have been repeated to resolve his disagreement with Gärtner.

Reforms at Kew.

X Club Dinner. H. B. Wilson and J. W. Colenso as guests.

Troubled by Lubbock’s going into Parliament – loss to science.

Has written to Busk.

Sending Botanische Zeitung.

W. J. Hooker is unwell.

Bentham wrote on Planchon ["The ancient and modern floras of Montpellier", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1865): 202–25],

T. Thomson on subspecies ["Species and subspecies", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1865): 226–42]

and Greene of York on ["The Linnean Society’s transactions", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1865): 189–202].

JDH did the leader in Gardeners’ Chronicle [(1865): 267–8, 291–2].

Delighted with CD’s calm opinion of Origin. Has same view of some of his own papers.

Pleased at CD’s opinion of Thomson’s article.

Non-reading is great fault of the best school of English scientific men.

Opposed to Lubbock’s going into Parliament.

W. J. Burchell’s collections are coming to Kew.

On FitzRoy’s suicide.

The Lyell–Ramsay disagreement [on formation of lakes?].

All overworked at Kew.

Burchell collections enormous.

Lyell has sent MS of Principles p. 111 on changes of temperature. JDH thinks Lyell blunders and is out of his depth.

Charmed with E. B. Tylor’s book on man [Early history of mankind (1865)],

disappointed in Lubbock’s [Prehistoric times (1865)].

JDH on the Lyell–Lubbock plagiarism controversy. His view of the true cause of Lubbock’s behaviour.

Impressed by Tylor’s book [see 4836].

Encloses admirable note from Huxley on Lyell–Lubbock affair.

Recommends J. W. Kayes’ book [History of the Sepoy War, vol. 1 (1864)].

Wife improving.

Glad CD liked Huxley’s letter.

Not an admirer of Kingsley.

Studying moraines.

On Lubbock’s book [see 4860], and Lyell’s apology. Recapitulates whole affair.

W. E. H. Lecky [Rise of rationalism in Europe (1865)] and other reading.

Spencer’s observations are wrong on umbellifers, his reasoning partially right.

Natural History Review is all but defunct.

On his reading: George Eliot,

T. F. Jamieson on Scottish glaciation.

Glad Lyell–Lubbock affair is over.

His grief over loss of father and child.

On novels he has been reading: Eliot, Richardson, etc.

On Wallace, the Reader, and anthropology.

Refers to ARW letters that Darwin had forwarded to Hooker. Criticises ARW for saying that Scientific men are afraid to say what they think.