WCP1594

[1]¹

Belton

Chaucer R^d.

Bedford

[Eastern Cape, South Africa]²

3^d. Oct[obe]^r. 1889

Alfred Wallace Esq^r.[?]

My dear Sir,

I have just been reading your interesting book,³ & it struck me that the following notes on observations made long ago in S. Africa may interest you as I notice you have been pleased to quote some of those published by me in Nature &c.

I was much struck by an extract of what you term justly[?] an extraordinary statement.⁴

When I was living at Cloud's Drift in the Koonap, my friend M^r. John Fuller purchased two young Rambouillet rams from a M^r. Sparkes of Adelaide. They were brought up under a common Ewe[?] goat, & continued under it on our farm. When put to the Ewes one of them would not look at a sheep Ewe, & at the first opportunity ran away to a flock [2] of half-bred Angora Goats. He used to fight with the Goat Ram & gave so much trouble that he was penned with some selected Ewes with his foster brother. Nevertheless he managed to escape several times, & he undoubtedly served the goat Ewes to a considerable extent. Not one of these however gave birth to any cross-bred lambs. He proved to be such a nuisance, that my friend sent him to his brother whose farm was larger, & &[sic] whose goats grazed on a mountain about 1 mile's distant [sic] from the sheep kraals, & with a river between. I believe he several times got away from the sheep.

The next season he escaped & after a search had been made, the goatherd stated that he had arrived on the mountain & at once joined the flock. The weather was very hot & the grass luxuriant on the mountain, & it was supposed that in consequence of the run up the steep mountain & the food he died suddenly from koore[?]. I remember many farmers wondered what sort of progeny would be [the] result of the cross [3] between him & the goats — no such occurrence being known to any one to have occurred before. But there was no offspring.

The Merino & Cape sheep formed the basis of the present S. African flocks, & thick hairs in abundance testify to their origin from time to time, but the large tails & usual characteristics of the original Cape sheep have disappeared, although flocks of Cape sheep in my time existed among the Dutch inland, where the fat served for butter.

The Angora & Cape goat also crossed & with them also the quantity of thick hairs affected largely the value[?] of the hair.

I never heard of a hybrid between sheep & goat, though my attention was often directed to such questions.

I went once some distance to see a very peculiar fowl, which I was assured was a cross between a hen & a drake. It had extremely short legs & long feet & waddled much like a duck. The owner was an Englishwoman who kept a small hotel. I learnt from her that she had bought it & did not know its origin, but thought it must be a hybrid. (It certainly was merely a fowl). [4] I afterwards ascertained from an old settler that the breed at one time was not uncommon among the Dutch, who valued it because the birds did not stray when they were on trek. I later on saw specimens but none so peculiar as that owned by the shop-keeper. In Nat. History Review I mentioned a case of a hinny⁵ giving abundance of milk, but it had had no foal, though it suckled a horse foal which had lost its mother. Cats I believe cross with Civets. I once shot a cat — a sketch of which I have — which differed in some slight respect from our tame ones, but did not feel sure about it.

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I see what I take to be a quotation from me about Dasypeltis.⁶ I am under the impression — tho' I have not a note to refer to — that the poisonous snake imitated was Causus rhombeatus (not a viper) commonly known as the Nacht or Night adder.

The inside of [the] mouth of Dasypeltis is bluish-black, which gives it a very repulsive aspect. The specimen was killed at Damon's[?] Kloof, & all my boys (natives) said it was a night adder. The markings do not exactly correspond but the tout-ensemble is very striking [5] ⁷ I have turned to Vol. xxiv xxxiv p 547 but do not find your reference.⁸ From what I remember of the Berg adder, which is rarer than Causus [,] I have no doubt [it] bears a general resemblance, but the scales or[?] head would be very different.

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On referring to my letter of 27/4/[18]71 Nature Vol III⁹ I think you have not quite correctly stated the case of Ajuga ophrydis.¹⁰I do not know of any ^particular orchid closely resembling it, though it has a striking resemblance to an orchid. In this case I did not notice insects common to [both] it & orchids visiting it. I am looking up some other letters of mine, but have to borrow the books I refer to. In one of my letters I remember that a page seemed to have been lost, & hence the sense changed.

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I never remember to have seen Nectarineas [sic] ¹¹ frequenting Tecoma Capensis¹² though both were extremely common in Kaffraria & at Bedford S[outh]. A[frica]. N[ectarinia]. famosa frequents Leonotis leonuris.¹³ I have a strong suspicion [6] that Nectarineas [sic] have to do with the fertilizing of the arboreal Erythrina¹⁴ though I have not observed them about other species.

Nectarineas frequent some Aloes & are often covered with the pollen. They also frequent the American Aloe; [&] ^{very commonly towards [the] west Proteas} as do Sphingidae¹⁵ &c.

When M^r. Wood-Mason¹⁶ was in England in '[18]78 I gave him two drawings of Protective Resemblances & Mimicry, which I showed at Ent[omology]. Soc[iety]., but I think you were not there. In one I had represented the curious resemblance to a flower presented by Empusa purpuripennis[?] (?)¹⁷. It varies much in tone[?] & when found among Sparaxis¹⁸ & golden Cyperaceae it looks exactly like a flower, though no particular species that I am aware of. I caught one with a Papilio flitting & I have seen this ^Dembless[?] butterfly captured by another mantis.

I gave to the B[ritish].M[useum]. some specimens of the tree frog (Hyperolius), the colour fades in spirit, but I have a drawing. [7] The belly is bright gamboge yellow & the legs vermilion orange. I have no note of the colour of the back, but I remember that it varied in different specimens, & resembled the coriaceous greyish tint of leaves on which I found it, & which made it difficult to distinguish.

A neighbour brought me the first I had seen together with some rushes[.] He stated that he had found it on a rush & had taken it for a flower. He was an illiterate man, but I believe truthful. I may add that I searched in spots similar to that he described & where Tritomas¹⁹ were growing, but did not find a specimen. I afterwards found it in the neighbourhood in a bush not far from water. The contrast between the surfaces is very great.

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The genus Thomisus²⁰[?] & allies are great flower imitators. I have seen blue & pink ones suspended on a bending grass, where they might well have [been] taken for an ixioid²¹ flower.

An allied form with large greenish legs I have seen beneath the involucre of a composite[?] with them so stretched out as to look like the scales. [8] Tritomas grow in rivulets generally similar to those in which they are planted in the Trocadero garden at Paris. They are found in company with the Arum, Watsonias &c. I have never seen them in ^sultry arid plains but always towards the moist coast. I sent seeds of Bowiea volubilis²² to my sister in Dorsetshire, & they all grew well, I believe out of doors.

With respect to what you write about thorny plants I suspect the truth lies between your views & M^r. Geddes.²³ Acacia horrida²⁴ in the low ^{hot & dry} Fish River valley has immense thorns ^{(over 5 inches long)} close to the coast, whereas in higher grassy[?] spots they are usually much smaller. Up in the Karoo the thorns are also large. The same is in a less degree true of Celastrus buxifolia²⁵. The effect of climate on the nutritious quality of grasses of the same species is striking, as M^r. MacOwan²⁶ first pointed out to me. The way in which overgrazing has affected vast tracts of country & changed the flora is astonishing. The weeds which accompany cultivation & manure are the pests of the farmer, but they [9]²⁷ disappear when the cultivation is neglected for several years, whereas over-cropping ^stocking seems to produce a permanent change. The explanation I believe to be due to the one lot being principally exotic, the other indigenous.

Heathy[?] succulents as are found along sea-shores & then perhaps not again till far inland.

I am convinced that the colours in Butterflies vary much according to dry & damp localities.

I think I have mentioned somewhere how the Pierids²⁸ & some junonias[?]²⁹ varied at Bedford S[outh]. A[frica]. according to seasons & as I attributed it to the strong winds bringing them from coast or inland.

I particularly note what you quote from M^r. Poulton³⁰ about the colour adaptation of pupae, being coincident with their change as larvae, because it was in that stage that the curious movement described by[?] me[?] & quoted by Trimen³¹ in the formation of the convexity, which give it such a strikingly leaf-like aspect, takes place. I gave Prof. Westwood³² the [10] only specimen I had kept & in which I had inserted a bristle between the processes in the act of change. I never saw whether he had published anything on it.

I had hoped to return & follow up the variations of merope.³³

In these fast sailing ^steaming days I think merope's pupae might reach Europe, & as the Butterfly frequents Plumbago Capensis, which flourishes in cool houses [,] it might be reared.

I forget whether I mentioned to you in my last letter that Xylocopas³⁴ at Cape bite holes in Petunia tubes like Humble-bees do in Antirrhinum³⁵[.] I saw also a blue Xylocopa near Nimes ^{S. France} doing the same thing.

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Modified habits.

When I was living at Brooklyn I sent to "Nature" a letter, a part of which must have got mislaid with a copy of [a] sketch — there is a good deal of confusion on Cape farms — I had just entered a newly built house. On one side was a small portico covered with sheet iron. A pair [11] of swallows came & built under it & finished its ^their nest in the usual way with a long projecting tube — the tube projecting straight outwards. Towards [the] end of September or beginning of Oct[ober] a very heavy rain set in, & the tube was destroyed [by] the water entering it. The tube was again nearly destroyed when half built. But this time the birds built it curved round & inwardly right across the corrugations of the iron. My note in Layard's³⁶ Book is on the same page as Hirundo Capensis³⁷ & I believe that to have been the species.

Another curious case was a nest I think of Hyphantornis ocularius (?) or perhaps ^rather "capitalis" ^{see Mrs. B's note in Layard}.³⁸I had planted Plantains & Phormium Tenax³⁹ in my garden. At first the plants grew well, but one spring I found the leaves all in threads, & in watching found the birds busy stripping them of their fibres & building. The Phormium was about the same time attacked by a yellow beetle in numbers & was ultimately destroyed. [12] M^r. Stow⁴⁰, the geologist, told me that he remembered seeing nest[s] of Paroides Capensis formed almost entirely of vegetable fibres, & if I remember right largely of seed tufts of Gomphocarpus.⁴¹

I suspect however that the cottony tufts of Eriocephalus⁴²was principally used by this bird, as by Drymoica Capensis, & other birds. I never saw one however otherwise than composed of merino wool, which before the introduction of these sheep by Lord C. Somerset⁴³ they could not have procured.

A curious bees' nest I gave to B[ritish]. M[useum]. was composed of vegetable fibres (apparently Eriocephalus) & partly of some animal's hair.

Scopus umbretta⁴⁴ like the Bower birds ornaments its nest with objects from civilized life.

I mentioned in an anonymous pamplet [sic] published by me at Cape a curious case of wasps — I take it [a] species of Eumenes — the one yellow barred with black, & of which I still have a drawing [,] builds little carafes on a stem like those figured by Bates [13]⁴⁵ of Trypoxylon in S. America & fills them with green spiders.⁴⁶ The other which is bluish-black builds similar nests on walls of houses, but after completing about 3 & filling them with green caterpillars smears them all over with a thick cover of mud completely defacing their form.

Some S. African wasps fill their nests with very large spiders[.] I made the discovery quite by accident & drew the insect with its prey — a large house spider very common. Prior to this I had not suspected it, but I believe now that more than one species of large wasps attacks Mygale, Cteniya[?] & Galeodes⁴⁷ from certain observations the meaning of which escaped me at the time. I have seen them hunting about just like Dogs in many low bushes at P[ort]. Elizabeth, in the Karoo & in Kaffraria. Have you known of such in the Tropics? A fight between a large wasp & [a] Mygale must be worth witnessing. [14] Our commonest Kaffrarian Mygale has a double gallery to its burrow & it is always in the indirect one its young ones are kept. When any [are] out she will stand almost upright & makes a grating noise with, I think, her falces⁴⁸.

If you turn to Vol II. 333 Burchell⁴⁹ you will find "I discovered almost accidentally, happening to sit down on the ground close to them, two small plants, the singularity of which consisted in their being so exactly of the color of the white limestone on which they grew, that scarcely any eye could have noticed them in walking by" [and] in [a] [foot]note ?sp[ecies] of Crassula & Anacampseros lanigera.

Anthus Capensis. The eggs are colour protected & the nest open & exposed on [the] ground. One day riding in Kaffraria across grass country when the same was quite short, my horse shied at something & in turning round I saw a most singular appearance on [the] ground, which I took to be a lot of [15] orange coloured fungi in a group. To my surprise on dismounting I found it was a Kolkoentje⁵⁰ nest[.] All the young ones had their mouths wide open but did not utter any cry. The interior of the mouth is bright orange & the quills of any[?] plumage more or less the same tint. The whole had a most uncanny tint. Our Chameleons when frightened or handled have also the habit of opening wide their mouths of a similar colour & inflate their throats.

I hardly like to disagree with your conclusions about sexual selection & the results of Nat[ural]. Selection on man's intellectual powers. I have however come to most different conclusions. The origin of S. African Native music[?] & Drawings have long occupied my attention & I only wish I had again the opportunities I hardly availed myself sufficiently of. I think I shall probably [16] publish something. I have copies of Bushmen[?] Drawings & many other drawings of insects &c if you would care to see them.

faithfully your | J. Mansel Weale ⁵¹ [signature]

P.S. I do not notice that Henslow⁵² or yourself touch on the p[oin]t. I suggested about irregular flowers.

Did I mention to you the singular sexual colouration of head & development of wattles in Dilophus carunculatus.⁵³ The whole disappears after breeding season, & (apart from sexual advantage) seems to be ^{a disadvantage} & danger to the fast birds, which are locust eaters & whose flesh is most delicious & much sought after by hawks &c. When breeding they are gregarious & migratory, seldom remaining long in any spot: I only met with them twice — once in breeding season & once out of it[.]