1857 RECOGNITION ABROAD 215 



and German with almost as much facility as his 

 mother tongue. " It is true, of course, that scientific 

 men read French and German before the time of 

 Huxley; but the deliberate consultation of all the 

 authorities available has been maintained in historical 

 succession since Huxley's earliest papers, and was 

 absent in the papers of his early contemporaries." l 



About this time his activity in several branches 

 of science began to find recognition from scientific 

 societies at home and abroad. In 1857 he was elected 

 honorary member of the Microscopical Society of 

 Giessen ; and in the same year, of a more important 

 body, the Academy of Breslau (Impemlis Academia 

 Csesariana Naturae Curiosorum). /ie writes to 

 Hooker : 



14 WAVERLEY PLACE, April 3, 1857. 



Having subsided from standing upon my head which 

 was the immediate causation of your correspondence about 

 the co-extension Imp. Acad. Cses. Nat. Cur. (don't I know 

 their thundering long title well !) I have to say that I 

 was born on the 4th of May of the year 1825, whereby I 

 have now more or less mis-spent thirty-one years and a 

 bittock, nigh on thirty-two. 



Furthermore, my locus natalis is Baling, in the county 

 of Middlesex. Upon ray word, it is very obliging of the 

 " curious naturals," and I must say wholly surprising and 

 unexpected. 



I shall hold up my head immensely to-morrow when 

 (blessed be the Lord) I give my last Fullerian. 



Among other things, I am going to take Cuvier's crack 

 case of the 'Possum of Montmartre as an illustration of 

 my views. 



1 P. Chalmers Mitchell in Natural Science, August 1 895. 



