338 BOTANY [CHAP. XI 



Letter 662 The vases l did come from my sister Susan. She is 

 recovering, and was much pleased to hear that you liked 

 them ; I have now sent one of your notes to her, in which 

 you speak of them as "enchanting," etc. I have had a 

 bad spell vomiting, every day for eleven days, and some 

 days many times after every meal. It is astonishing the 

 degree to which I keep up some strength. Dr. Brinton was 

 here two days ago, and says 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 2 to me and more than a Copley Medal : not but what 

 I know well that you overrate what I have been able to do. 

 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. 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 T D ' Oliver * 



Down, Feb. i7th [1864]. 



Many thanks for the Epacrids, which I have kept, as they 

 will interest me when able to look through the microscope. 



Dr. Criiger 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 



1 Probably Wedgwood ware. 



2 The proposal to give the medal to Darwin failed in 1863, but his 

 friends were successful in 1864 : see Life and Letters, III., p. 28. 



3 Proc. Zool. Soc., 1863, p. 127, by Prof. Newton, who sent the foot to 

 Darwin : see Origin, Ed. VI., p. 328. 



