Has quoted WDF on crossing white and slate muscovy ducks [Variation 2: 40]. When not crossed, do these breed true?

Will also quote him on Mr Woodd’s white ewes that produced black lambs by a ram with only black spots [Variation 2: 30].

Will send portion of copied manuscript [of Variation 2: 8–10] for WB to examine. Asks about inherited abnormalities of the eye.

Receipt for cheque enclosed.

Sends a sentence, quoting JP, on inherited peculiarities in eye-brows. Asks whether he may use it in his chapter on inheritance [Variation, ch. 12].

[On Antiquity of man] CD is "convinced that at times … you have … given up immutability". "A clear expression from you, if you could have given it, would have been potent with the public."

Objects to CL’s description of CD’s view "as a modification of Lamarck’s doctrine". Quotes Henrietta [Darwin]’s observations on this description.

Comments on CL’s controversy with Owen concerning the human brain.

The controversy between Falconer and CL.

The "wretched" review of CL [Antiquity of man, Athenæum 14 Feb 1863, pp. 219–21] and Huxley [Man’s place in nature].

Lyell’s position on mutability.

Fertilisation of trees by bees.

TWW should look at bee and comb specimens received by CD from Africa.

If WDF should hear what ram was put to the ewes, CD would like to add it [see Variation 2: 30].

Will add "cautiously" that WDF believes white and slate muscovy ducks breed true [Variation 2: 40].

Thanks Academy on his election as a Corresponding Member.

Reports the observations of Hermann Crüger and John Scott that fruit is set by orchids whose flowers never open and that pollen-tubes are emitted from pollen-masses still in their proper position. These cases convince CD that in Orchids he underestimated the power of tropical orchids to produce seed without insect aid but he is not shaken in his belief that the structure of the flowers is mainly related to insect agency.

Lyell’s Antiquity of man lacks originality.

Statements in Lyell provoke CD to determine exact publication date of Origin and JDH’s introductory essay [to Flora Tasmaniae].

CD now believes in repeated periods of global cooling and migration.

His better opinion [of work of Boucher de Perthes].

Explains his position on CL’s treatment of species.

Mentions positive response to his ideas on the part of a German professor [Ernst Haeckel], Alphonse de Candolle, and a botanical palaeontologist [Gaston de Saporta].

Notes negative reaction of entomologists.

Mentions Falconer’s objections [to Antiquity].

Mentions work of Hooker.

Comments on paper by Owen ["On the aye-aye", Rep. BAAS 32 (1862) pt 2: 114–16]

and CD’s review of Bates’s paper [Collected papers 2: 87–92].

Thinks Natural History Review is excellent.

Thanks for the artificial comb.

Discusses the meaning of C. K. Sprengel’s term "dichogamy". Dichogamous plants are functionally monoecious; Primula is functionally dioecious.

Reports Hermann Crüger’s observations of Cattleya and of bees pollinating Catasetum. Crüger will observe Melastomataceae.

Has built a hothouse.

Fears Amsinckia cannot be dimorphic.

Ill health slows his work on Variation.

Thanks WDF for authentic details of number and colour of lambs [Variation 2: 30].

Complains of his eczema.

Observation on morphology of Primula ovarium sent for DO’s use.

Thanks for potatoes, which may be useful in crossing.

Germination of seeds in earth on partridge’s foot.

Enthusiastic about JS’s work on Passiflora self-incompatibility.

CD quotes JS on rostellar pollen germination [in "Fertilisation of orchids", Collected papers 2: 77–8]. H. Crüger attributes it to ants’ carrying stigmatic secretion to pollen.

Homomorphic cowslip seedlings are, sadly, showing variation.

Encloses a dialogue on species from a New Zealand newspaper [S. Butler’s First dialogue on evolution, from the Christchurch Press].

CD’s opinion of Lyell’s Antiquity of man.

Geographical distribution during and between glacial periods.

Latent characters and reversion.