Asks GHD what the chances are against squinting and non-squinting children coming alternately in a family of ten.

Has a small living at Norton Canon.

Will visit Charles Whitley next week.

Requests that correspondent take some action regarding the state of horses on his farm. Robert Ainslie of Tromer Lodge, Down, was fined in 1852 following CD’s complaints.

A report on his somewhat improved health.

Comments on CD’s health.

Discusses origin of life and differentiation of principal classes of plants and animals.

Discusses Generelle Morphologie and its chapter on embryological development.

His lectures on CD’s theory.

Asks CD for larger portrait of himself and for several copies of the small photograph. Will send photographs of German scientists in exchange.

Has made observations on bees’ cells. Their dimensions are not constant, nor do single bees make single cells; each one is a result of co-operation.

In despair: has lost his copy of Verlot’s memoir on variations of flowers [Sur la production et la fixation des variétés (1866)]. Has JDH borrowed it?

Is in a mess with his correspondence and will get no assistance before 1 April.

Has agreed to give an address on the Darwinian theory at Nottingham [meeting of BAAS].

Has found Verlot.

His sister [Emily Catherine Langton] is dying [d. 2 Feb 1866].

His stomach still very bad. Writes one or two hours and reads a little.

JDH is a wretch to remind CD of his coal-plant prophecy.

Glad JDH will give Nottingham lecture.

Discusses pigeon and poultry woodcuts [for Variation].

WBT’s poultry book is at last in the hands of a solvent publisher [The poultry book (1867)].

Sorrow about Mrs Langton. Has been haunted by death these six or eight years. Now cannot bear to look at children asleep in bed – a sight he once thought the loveliest thing in creation.

Thanks for the remittance.

Both WBT and Mr Zurhorst will repeat Zurhorst’s experiment to eliminate any chance of error.

Edward Blyth is writing on Indian cattle for the Field [27 (1866): 55–6, 77].

Discusses exchange of photographs with German scientists.

Comments on attitudes of German scientists toward CD’s theory.

Names several scientists who exchanged photographs: Braun, Virchow, Leydig, and Dohrn.

Last fascicles of FR’s book Der Mensch [1866] being sent.

Finds roots of human race in Negroes of Africa, Bushmen of South Africa and New Guinea, and short-headed peoples of south Asia.

Has translated natural selection as natürliche Auslese.

Ludwig Rütimeyer active in developing the descent of mammals.

Sends a paper on Bombus ["On the habits of some species of humble-bees", Commun. Essex Inst. 4 (1866): 98–104].

Is seeking election to the Royal Society.

Asks CD whether he knows of a medicine to check vomiting – for a friend dying from starvation as a result.

Duke of Somerset is looking for two naturalists for survey ship to Korea and Strait of Magellan.

Looks forward to reading Variation.

Explains how two or more female forms occur in one species through selection. The physiological problem remains of how each produces offspring like the other without intermediates. Is not CD’s case of varieties that will not blend the physiological test of a species needed for "complete proof of the origin of species"?

"Travels" postponed.

Thanks CD for supporting his application to the Royal Society.

Memorandum of a meeting of the Natural History & Antiquarian Society held in Dumfries on Tuesday 6 February 1866.