Summary

Birds has gone to the printer.

Continues "to collect all kinds of facts about ""varieties and species"" " for his "some-day work".

Would be grateful for descriptions of offspring of crossbred domestic animals.

Summary

Heights of various places in Chile.

Summary

Writes of his ride from Rio Negro to Bahia Blanca and Buenos Aires, which he undertook in order to learn the geology of the land, so full of bones of large extinct quadrupeds.

Summary

Sends detailed report on the prospects for a settlement on the coast of Patagonia, pointing out many problems, and recommending instead the Falkland Islands.

Summary

Describes Patagonia and its inhabitants.

Writes of his pleasure in geology.

Predicts that Falklands will become an "important halting place". Outlines Beagle’s future itinerary.

Summary

CD is unwell.

FitzRoy has dispatched two casks of bones and stones, a box with "very valuable specimens", and a large jar.

Summary

Informs JSH that a Spanish friend has offered him a cargo of bones. If they arrive, he has arranged with Edward Lumb to forward them to JSH. [Forwarded to JSH with 244.]

Summary

Gives a map of part of Chile between Santiago and San Fernando. Suggests places and people that CD might profitably visit [en route].

Summary

Sends two boxes of specimens and part of his "hum-drum letter-like" journal.

Summary

Is searching for a tooth of Carcharias which he might have left with RO.

Summary

On FitzRoy’s life and character.

Carl von Siebold’s cases of males and females of gall insects [True parthenogenesis in moths and bees (1857)]. Each sex produced on different plants.

Haeckel’s astonishing case of propagation in a Medusa.

Summary

On fossils ([Megatherium], etc.), plants, shells sent and new ones found; geological observations. Asks for help in understanding cleavage and planes of deposition.

A new species of ostrich. Cites differences in size, colour, nidification, and geographical distribution.

Summary

News of family and friends.

Word that William Clift thinks CD’s latest fossils are of much value.

Summary

On novels he has been reading: Eliot, Richardson, etc.

On Wallace, the Reader, and anthropology.

Summary

Dinner at the Hensleigh Wedgwoods’. They have agreed to go over his journal. Henry Holland thinks it not worth publishing alone because it goes over FitzRoy’s ground.

His impressions of Harriet Martineau: "She is overwhelmed with her own projects, her own thoughts and own abilities."

Summary

CD is excited by JSH’s high opinion of his collections.

Discusses his notes and some new discoveries. Summary of events since leaving Falklands.

Geology of Patagonia.

Corallines at Tierra del Fuego convince him of artificiality of arrangement of their families by Lamarck and Cuvier.

Geological expedition in Andes, ending with serious illness. Specimens being sent.

Summary

News of family and friends.

Summary

Acknowledges CD’s letter about alpine entomology of Tierra del Fuego; discusses geographical distribution; urges CD to make a chart of vegetable and geological distribution of insects. Advises him on species to collect and assures him of all assistance in describing his captures on his return.

Tells of founding of Entomological Society, and enrolls CD.

News of J. F. Stephens’ lawsuit and continuation of his Illustrations of British entomology [1827–46]. Praises general state of zoological science in England.