1865 LETTER TO DR. PARKER 391 



success of Parker's work. Parker was hard at work 

 on Birds, a subject in which his friend and leader 

 also was deeply interested, and was indeed preparing 

 an important book upon it. 



Referring to his candidature for the Royal Society, 

 he writes on February 21, 1865 : "With reference to 

 your candidature, I am ready to bring your name 

 forward whenever you like, and to back you with 

 'all my might, power, amity, and authority,' as 

 Essex did Bacon (you need not serve me as Bacon 

 did Essex afterwards), but my impression has been 

 that you did not wish to come forward this year." 



And on November 2, 1866, congratulating him on 

 his "well-earned honour" of the F.R.S. "Go on 

 and prosper. These are not the things wise men 

 work for ; but it is not the less proper of a wise man 

 to take them when they come unsought." 



26 ABBEY PLACE, Dec, 3, 1865. 



MY DEAR PARKER I have been so terribly pressed by 

 my work that I have only just been able to finish the 

 reading of your paper. 



Very few pieces of work which have fallen in my 

 way come near your account of the Struthious skull in 

 point of clearness and completeness. It is a most admir- 

 able essay, and will make an epoch in this kind of 

 inquiry. 



I want you, however, to remodel the introduction, and 

 to make some unessential but convenient difference in the 

 arrangement of some of the figures. 



Secondly, full as the appendix is of most valuable 

 and interesting matter, I advise you for the present to 

 keep it back. 



