Reports events at Down.

Is busy with proofs [of Origin];

is anxious to hear how WED does in his examinations.

CD making extensive corrections on proofs of Origin. Worries that style is too dry.

Doubts about Joseph Prestwich’s discovery [of flint tools].

No doubt about worm-holes in the Long Mynd, and they are certainly lower than J. Barrande’s primordial zone. Fossils in Laurentian gneiss.

Returns JDH’s proofs. He is so involved in Origin he cannot judge force of JDH’s arguments. Some detailed comments.

Haldeman’s old paper [see 2470] clever, but does not have natural selection. Explaining adaptation has always seemed turning point of theory of natural selection.

Discusses affairs at Down and WED’s coming trip to the Lakes.

Is getting on very slowly with his "confounded proof-sheets" [of Origin].

CD wants JDH to make clear in introduction to Flora Tasmaniae that remarks on CD’s theory refer to his 1858 paper ["On the tendency of species to form varieties", Collected papers 2: 3–19].

Wonders whether CD would be interested in a book by Dr Bucknell [J. C. Bucknill?] on psychology.

Writes of a visit to Leith Hill and WED’s injured ankle.

All but last two chapters of Origin proofs corrected.

Praise for JDH’s introductory essay [to Flora Tasmaniae].

Very ill and sick of work.

Corrected last proof of Origin yesterday. Still has revises and index to do.

Will read more JDH proofs of Flora Tasmaniae.

Praises the Origin: a "splendid case of close reasoning".

Objects to CD’s having ignored Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.

Thinks CD should omit mentioning problem of explaining the eye at the beginning of chapter 14. Suggests rewording several passages.

Thinks want of peculiar birds in Madeira a difficulty, considering presence of them in Galapagos.

Has always felt that the case of man and his races is one and the same with animals and plants.

Response to Origin. Praise for summary of chapter 10 and chapter 11.

The dissimilarity of African and American species is ‘necessary result of “Creation” adapting new species to the pre-existing ones. Granting this unknown & if you please miraculous power acting’.

C. T. Gaudin writes of Oswald Heer’s finding many species common between Miocene floras of Iceland and Switzerland. Interesting for CD’s migration theory.

CL’s comments on Origin. Mentions corrections to last chapter suggested by CL.

Comments on lack of peculiar bird species on Madeira and Bermuda. Emphasises importance of American types in Galapagos.

Denies necessity of continued creation of primitive "Monads".

Denies need for new powers and any principle of improvement.

Discusses gradations of intellectual powers.

Adaptive inferiority and extinction of groups of species and genera.

Asserts that climate is less important than the struggle with other organisms.

Suggests an experiment involving primroses and cowslips.

The chapter on hybridisation.

Rudimentary organs.

Gives opinion of Lamarck’s work.

Discusses events at Ilkley.

Book finished some two weeks.

Feeling much better at Ilkley.

Lyell thinks favourably of book but "staggered" at lengths to which CD goes.

Which continental botanists should receive presentation copies?

Discusses presentation copies [of the Origin].

Tells how to get information on, and gain membership in, the London Library.

Congratulates JDH on finishing his introductory essay [to Flora Tasmaniae].

Lyell’s position on mutability appears more positive in his letters to JDH than in those to CD. Considers JDH a convert.

The antlers of 800 deer of the glacial period have been found in a cave. They show great variety of form, but gradation from one to the other can be traced when all are laid out. Suggests CD study changes that have taken place in the species since glacial period.

Has ordered the wicked book [Origin] CD has been so long a-hatching.

More detailed comments on JDH’s introductory essay [to Flora Tasmaniae]. Remarks on struggle of vegetation are admirable.

JDH will receive Origin in about ten days.