ys he sees no reason [why] I may not recover my
former degree of health. I should like to live to do a little more work,
and often I feel sure I shall, and then again I feel that my tether is
run out.

Your Hastings note, my dear old fellow, was a Copley Medal to me and
more than a Copley Medal: not but what I know well that you overrate
what I have been able to do. (662/2. The proposal to give the medal
to Darwin failed in 1863, but his friends were successful in 1864: see
"Life and Letters," III., page 28.) Now that I am disabled, I feel more
than ever what a pleasure observing and making out little difficulties
is. By the way, here is a very little fact which may interest you. A
partridge foot is described in "Proc. Zoolog. Soc." with a huge ball of
earth attached to it as hard as rock. (662/3. "Proc. Zool. Soc." 1863,
page 127, by Prof. Newton, who sent the foot to Darwin: see "Origin,"
Edition VI., page 328.) Bird killed in 1860. Leg has been sent me, and I
find it diseased, and no doubt the exudation caused earth to accumulate;
now already thirty-two plants have come up from this ball of earth.

By Jove! I must write no more. Good-bye, my best of friends.

There is an Italian edition of the "Origin" preparing. This makes the
fifth foreign edition--i.e. in five foreign countries. Owen will not be
right in telling Longmans that the book would be utterly forgotten in
ten years. Hurrah!

LETTER 663. TO D. OLIVER. Down, February 17th [1864].

Many thanks for the Epacrids, which I have kept, as they will interest
me when able to look through the microscope.

Dr. Cruger has sent me the enclosed paper, with power to do what I think
fit with it. He would evidently prefer it to appear in the "Nat. Hist.
Review." Please read it, and let me have your decision pretty soon. Some
germanisms must be corrected; whether woodcuts are necessary I have not
been able to pay attention enough to decide. If you refuse, please send
it to the Linnean Society as communicated by me. (663/1. H. Cruger's
"A Few Notes on the Fecundation of Orchids, etc." [Read March, 1864.]
"Linn. Soc. Journ." VIII., 1864-5, page 127.) The paper has interested
me extremely, and I shall have no peace till I have a good boast. The
sexes are separate in Catasetum, which is a wonderful relief to me, as I
have had two or three letters saying that the male C. tridentatum seeds.
(663/2. See footnote Letter 608 on the sexual relation between the three
forms know