From Alfred Russel Wallace   7 April 1862

5 Westbourne Grove Terrace. W

April 7th. 1862

My dear Mr. Darwin

I was much pleased to receive your note this morning.1 I have not yet begun work but hope to be soon busy.2 As I am being doctored a little I do not think I shall be able to accept your kind invitation at present but trust to be able to do so during the summer.

I beg you to accept a wild honeycomb from the island of Timor, not quite perfect but the best I could get. It is of a small size but of characteristic form & I think will be interesting to you. I was quite unable to get the honey out of it, so fear you will find it somewhat in a mess but no doubt you will know how to clean it.

I have told Stevens to send it to you.3

Hoping your health is now quite restored & with best wishes | I remain | My dear Mr Darwin | Yours very sincerely | Alfred R. Wallace

C. Darwin Esq.

1
CD’s letter has not been found.
2
Wallace had recently arrived in England, having spent eight years in the Malay Archipelago (Wallace 1905, 1: 385).
3
Samuel Stevens was Wallace’s London agent, responsible for handling the natural history specimens that Wallace collected. In a drawer of the rent table in CD’s study at Down House is a pill box marked: ‘Bees: Timor   Wallace, of which I have comb.—’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3496,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3496