Thanks for parcel of shoots with several interesting cases of "bud-variation".

Asks for information about roses.

Strange that great changes in peaches are less rare than slight ones and no case seems recorded of new apples or pears or apricots by "bud-variation". "How ignorant we are!"

Comments on his elephant paper

and CD’s observations on dimorphism in Melastomataceae.

Has been reading his work on volcanoes and earthquakes ['About Volcanoes and Earthquakes'] with interest. Regarding his own health.

No summary available.

CD’s respect for JS’s indomitable work and interesting experiments increases steadily.

His gratitude for the primulas and the astonishing Gongora specimen.

Asks JS’s opinion about crossing a primrose with the pollen of a wild cowslip and of a cultivated polyanthus.

Answers CD’s query on the free digits of Archaeopteryx.

Is grateful for his reply. Where can he find a statement of Isaac Newton regarding the relationship between colors and music?

CD overwhelmed by THH’s praise.

Agrees with his reservations about species theory but not wholly about sterility and gives his reasons for differing.

On Natural History Review, Hugh Falconer, and R. Owen.

Has written a review [Collected papers 2: 87–92] of H. W. Bates’s paper ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566].

Many thanks for his information. Comments again on the prize being offered by the Academy. The answer is now being published by the R.S.L.

Thanks for "rich and valuable" letter [missing].

Has read TR’s paper in Gardeners’ Chronicle ["Seedling fruits – plums", (1863): 27] – "a treasure to me".

Questions about seedling peaches that approach almonds.

Asks whether TR has ever observed varieties of plants growing close to other varieties for several generations without being affected by crossing.

Asa Gray will try to get HWB’s paper reviewed.

Also mentions that he (CD) wrote a short review of it for Natural History Review [Collected papers 2: 87–92].

Asks whether bees or Lepidoptera visit flowers of Melastomataceae.

Huxley’s lectures [Man’s place in nature (1863)]; he would be a scientific H. T. Buckle, if he were more careful.

Asks CD what the evidence is for inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Official receipt for copy of JH's The Telescope (1861) by library at Smithsonian Institution.

Sorry CD considers Horace Darwin unfit for school.

Received his letter and comments with pleasure. Asks some questions on photographic experiments.

Acquired characteristics.

Huxley’s lectures: good on induction, bad on sterility, obscure on geology.

Asa Gray on slavery.

Falconer’s partial conversion.

Alphonse de Candolle on Origin.

Anxious to receive final sheets of nebula catalogue from GA [see GA's 1862-11-19], as JH wants to enter the descriptions and complete the work.

Preparing classified index of observatory journals, but information will not be accurate enough to help JH. G. J. Stoney is too busy to help remeasure nebulae positions.

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".

In GA's absence, ES reports on the state of completion of the final copy of the nebula catalogue [see JH's 1863-1-13].