CD sends thanks for information; will write about the fins.

His health is weak and he is "almost smothered" with facts and inquiries, so is trying to restrict the scope of his present work, on variation under domestication.

Answers TR’s query about stomata.

CD will use "weeping trees" as an example of how inexplicable the laws of inheritance are, and asks for facts on character of seedlings.

Suggests collecting seeds at different heights from British Columbia.

Describes experiment on seeds from short anthers.

C. V. Naudin writes he has discovered cause of hybrid sterility.

Asks JJB for date of his article in the Field dealing with the regeneration of fishes’ fins; additional questions about the fish.

Answers D. Beaton’s criticism of Gärtner’s work, defending his results in crossing experiments and vindicating the memory of "one of the most laborious lovers of truth who ever lived".

Thanks CL for "the great book" [Antiquity of man (1863)].

Richard Owen "ought to be ostracised by every Naturalist in England".

CL’s book will "give the whole subject of change of species an enormous advance".

Thanks for informative letter of 2 February. CD is glad to have CVN’s opinion on the crossing of varieties of melons,

has made use of his memoir on the Cucurbitaceae ["Cucurbitacées cultivées au Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle en 1862", Ann. Sci. Nat. (Bot.) 18 (1863): 159–208]

and anticipates with great interest his work on hybridisation.

Wishes to order Botanische Zeitung for 2 and 9 January 1863.

On six-fingered men: suspects increase confined to metacarpals and digits. Has asked James Paget to look it up.

Invites WDF to Down.

His stomach now so bad he cannot stay, even with close relations, for more than half an hour at a time.

Thanks GGS for calculation [to determine the chances of the same peculiarity recurring in a family, see Variation 2: 5]

Agreement to cancel the bond of D. T. Ansted, dated 19 April 1855. Prof. Ansted is arranging to pay CD what he can.

Delighted by curious case of inheritance in the weeping ash [cited in missing letter from TR] "which produced weeping seedlings and itself lost the weeping peculiarity!" Wishes he could get authentic information on the weeping elm.

What TR says of seedlings conquering each other well illustrates struggle for existence and natural selection.

Asa Gray on democracy of plants.

Requests plants for new hothouse. Transferring plants to Down in winter.

Sends belated thanks for the useful facts which he plans to quote. [See 3963.]

Thanks for letter and pamphlet.

His approbation of Origin is extremely gratifying, especially since Origin produced no effect whatever in France.

Thanks HBD for his lectures On the germs and vestiges of disease [1861].

Thinks his reasoning that the V. M. F. ("force exhibited in the operations of life") is not a "given quantity" is satisfactory.

How far the conditions of life affect the forms of organic life puzzles CD more than any other part of his subject. Thinks he may have underrated its importance in Origin.

Asks for source of the quotation on regeneration in HBD’s work.

It is not carpal or tarsal bones that are increased [in six-fingered men] but generally only the digits and metacarpals.

Pectoral fins of fish and sharks.

Asks THH to check P. M. Roget’s statement that there is a rudiment of a sixth digit in frogs.

[P.S. missing from original.]

Tells JS Acropera capsule should be left to grow.

JS was correct on "bud-variation" in fern frond.

Does not believe Primula structure necessarily related to dioecism, but the difference in fertility of the two forms forced him to admit the possibility.

Further discusses RT’s observations on Cape [of Good Hope] orchids and asks whether it would be possible for him to send some specimens to Kew.