Thanks AdeC for his memoir ["Étude sur l’espèce", Ann. Sci. Nat. (Bot.) 4th ser. 18 (1862): 59–110].

CD astonished at the amount of variability in the oaks.

CD differs from most contemporaries in thinking that the vast continental extensions of Forbes, Heer, and others are not only advanced without sufficient evidence but are opposed to much weighty evidence.

AdeC’s comment on CD’s work [Origin] is generous.

CD is satisfied at the length AdeC goes with him and is not surprised at his prudent reservations. He remembers how many years it took him to change his old beliefs. The great point is to give up immutability. So long as species are thought immutable there can be no progress in "epiontology" [see ML 1: 234 n.]. CD is sure to be proved wrong in many points but the subject will have "a grand future".

Asks for account of sales of Geology of "Beagle". Willing to consider offer for remaining stock in order to close account.

Thanks for a gift of £20.

Health.

Is sending information about Timor fossils to be forwarded to Hugh Falconer.

JDH on Asa Gray’s sanguine view of the Civil War and slavery.

Wishes to discuss variation with CD, a subject that Huxley does not understand.

Particularly interested in TR’s information about peaches. Accepts offer of double-flowering peach-trees.

Will build a small hothouse for experiments.

CD’s paper [on Linum] is announced for reading at the Linnean Society on 5 February.

Experiments to cut Laelia stigma from rostellum and then to fertilise rostellum are baffled by "a latent instinctive power". Somehow the pollen-tubes find their way to the style.

Suggests CD study variation in ferns.

Thanks for "Two forms of Primula" [Collected papers 2: 45–63].

Praise for Orchids.

Has sent copy of his paper to Asa Gray.

Melastomad flowers are strikingly neglected by pollinators.

Murray has ordered many illustrations for HWB’s Naturalist on the river Amazons.

Can TR distinguish generally, always, or never, a nectarine-tree from a peach-tree before it flowers or before it fruits? He wants to quote TR’s answer.

His work on Mexico has some geology, which might interest CD.

He is currently at work on the "filiation des genres des espèces et des moeurs des guepes [hornets]".

Jaw with teeth found associated with Archaeopteryx fossil. Waterhouse pronounces it a fish’s jaw.

Comments on his own review of Bates’s butterfly paper [Collected papers 2: 87–92].

Thanks AG for information on Platanthera.

Has been wasting more time with Melastomataceae; can find no nectar in Monochaetum; is there any in Rhexia?

Hopes Lincoln’s "fiat against Slavery" will have some effect.

Returns book by Friedrich Rolle. Author has sent copies.

Discusses hybrid strawberry–raspberry

and his research on Primula and Linum.

Suggests breeding experiments.

Doubtful about Donald Beaton’s statement about Pelargonium.

Mentions experiments on peloric flowers.

If jaw belongs to Archaeopteryx, it will show great peculiarity. A German author has advanced the case as argument for Origin.

Has been copying out references from Natural History Review [possibly D. Oliver, "The structure of the stem in dicotyledons; being references to the literature of the subject", Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 298–329].

Suggests DO study high incidence of separate sexes in freshwater plants.

Will be glad to have CD.

Sends some trees to CD.

Would be pleased to receive the copy of Origin offered by CD as gift.

Will give CD any tree or shrub he may want.

Refers to curious strawberry hybrids noticed in Journal of Horticulture [I. Anderson-Henry, "Crossing strawberries", J. Hortic. n.s. 4 (1863): 45–6].