for it--at present I do not see one or the other, and so feel inclined to
renounce any other for the present.") By the way, I always boast to you,
and so I think Owen will be wrong that my book will be forgotten in ten
years, for a French edition is now going through the press and a second
German edition wanted. Your long letter to Bates has set my head working,
and makes me repent of the nine months spent on orchids; though I know not
why I should not have amused myself on them as well as slaving on bones of
ducks and pigeons, etc. The orchids have been splendid sport, though at
present I am fearfully sick of them.

I enclose a waste copy of woodcut of Mormodes ignea; I wish you had a plant
at Kew, for I am sure its wonderful mechanism and structure would amuse
you. Is it not curious the way the labellum sits on the top of the
column?--here insects alight and are beautifully shot, when they touch a
certain sensitive point, by the pollinia.

How kindly you have helped me in my work! Farewell, my dear old fellow.


LETTER 137. TO H.W. BATES.
Down, May 4th [1862].

Hearty thanks for your most interesting letter and three very valuable
extracts. I am very glad that you have been looking at the South Temperate
insects. I wish that the materials in the British Museum had been richer;
but I should think the case of the South American Carabi, supported by some
other case, would be worth a paper. To us who theorise I am sure the case
is very important. Do the South American Carabi differ more from the other
species than do, for instance, the Siberian and European and North American
and Himalayan (if the genus exists there)? If they do, I entirely agree