Summary

Comments on JP’s work [Old Price’s remains (1863–4)].

Anglo-American relations. Progress of the Civil War.

Summary

Family and local news, and memories of old times.

CD’s youngest son, Horace, is too delicate to go to school.

CD has had a bad summer, is still ill, can do very little work – "Botany … is all that I am good for".

Summary

Sees difficulties in adhering to the concept of design in nature.

Is surprised at Hooker’s and Daniel Oliver’s ignorance regarding spontaneous movements of tendrils.

CD should continue his work on climbing plants, "it will be fruitful in your hands".

Summary

Thanks CD for his letter and geological report on the stones JJA sent.

Encloses postage stamps for CD’s son.

Summary

Explains "Duke Darwinii" reference [in 4283].

Family news.

Writes of Scottish immorality and pious talk.

Summary

Has returned from trip to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

Has been made President of the Ethnological Society.

Summary

His bad health has caused him to return to Malvern.

Emma cannot find the gravestone of their child, Anne. Asks WDF whether he can remember its location.

Summary

Sends address.

Comments on BAAS meeting at Newcastle.

Summary

Encloses a four-page printed pamphlet on the cruelty of steel traps [see Collected papers 2: 83–4].

Summary

Glad to find they are cousins.

Sends his book [High Elms (pseud.), The game-preserver’s manual (1858)].

Summary

Gives directions to CD’s daughter’s [Anne’s] grave.

Summary

Describes some cases of geographical distribution of butterflies. Raises the perplexing question of the distribution of Pyrameis atalanta in Europe and P. calliroe in the Canaries.

Summary

Is having E. Suess’s essay [see 4284] translated; will forward it as soon as it is done.

Summary

CD elected an honorary member of the Society.

Summary

Sends some original observations on British ferns [not found].

Has secured a small pension and hopes to acquire a house near Kew.

Summary

Sends Primula MS, which CD has promised to communicate to Linnean Society [see 4213].

Will soon send results on peloric Antirrhinum.

Summary

CD too unwell to read. JS should not send Primula paper MS until CD returns home.

Summary

Sends information on the flowers of Cassia roxburghii; will send flowers of all the species of Cassia for CD to study with a view to discovering the law which operates to bring about the differences.

Summary

JS’s MS [of Primula paper] arrived, but CD is too ill to read it.

CD has sent JS’s paper on orchid sterility to Botanische Zeitung and to Hooker.

Summary

News of C. J. F. Bunbury and the Lyells.