Sends his paper ["Insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. R. Entomol. Soc. Lond. 2d ser. 5 (1861): 223–8, 335–61].

Points out three areas of interest arising from the study of the species of Papilio: the derivation of the fauna, the variability of the species, and the permanence of local varieties.

Discusses J. S. Baly’s views on specific differences in reproductive organs [Catalogue of the Hispidae in the collection of the British Museum (1858)].

Discusses specific varieties, especially geographic varieties.

Comments on the effects of the glacial age on the tropics.

Sexual selection.

Mention of Volucella.

Discusses the mimicry of the Volucella flies, and the bees and wasps they mimic. Compares it with the different object of mimicry in butterflies.

Refers to incompleteness of Cuthbert Collingwood’s paper [? "On homophormism, or organic representative forms", Proc. Liverpool Lit. & Philos. Soc. 14 (1860): 181–216].

Thanks CD for help in selecting a publisher for his book [The naturalist on the river Amazons (1863)].

Furnishes CD with more information on Volucella and gives him references relating to this and butterfly colourings. States that colours are not necessarily related to resting-places but rather an endowment to enable them to withstand adverse conditions.

Remarks about Labiatae, Linum, Oxalis and Viola occasioned by hearing CD’s paper ["Two forms of Primula", read 21 Nov 1861, Collected papers 2: 45–63].

Lists pairs of Oxalis species with differing proportions of stamens and styles.

Sexual behaviour of fowls.

On his father’s crossing experiments with cacti, in which hybrids were found quite fertile.

On his breeding of guinea-pigs.

Sends Miss E. Watts’s message about crested fowls and Brahmas.

Evidence of glacial action in Australia. [See Origin, 4th ed., p. 443.]

Notes observations on the spread of bees in New Zealand and their importance as pollinators of clover and other introduced plants.

Physiological changes in Shetland ponies and seagulls resulting from change in diet.

Reports on the discovery of eyeless beetles in cellar [i.e., not caves]. How did they get there, and whence?

Two letters for WED at E. A. Darwin's. G. H. Darwin has been to dentist. Please collect and pay for GHD’s skates.

CD’s opinion of minor critics and commentators on Origin.

H. C. Watson’s notion of genera converging is dismissed.

Thanks for mentioning J. G. Kurr on nectaries [Untersuchungen über die Bedeutung der Nektarien in den Blumen (1833)]. Requests observations on flowers with curved pistils. Finds they curve toward nectary, thus lying in path of insect.

Writes of Henrietta’s illness.

Changes in admission to Athenaeum.

Slowly working at his volume on Variation.

Experiments on insectivorous and "sensitive" plants.

Comments on JL’s paper ["Notes on the generative organs, and on the formation of the egg in the Annulosa", Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 11 (1860–2): 117–24].

Henrietta’s continuing poor health. JDH’s suggestion to rub her with cod-liver oil.

Asa Gray’s pamphlet.

Ill health.