WCP1761

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset

July 17th. 1892

Charles Hedley Esq[uire].

Dear Sir

Thanks for your letter & paper. I know nothing myself of Land Shells, but your remarks on their distribution are very interesting, especially as to the operculate shells having entered Queensland, but each existing in other parts of Australia, even in the N.W. This agrees, to some extent, with my theory of the cause of the diversity of the flora & fauna of West & East Australia, as given in [2] my "Island Life".

My friend Mr. Theo[dore] D. A. Cockerell now Curator of the Museum of the Jamaica Institute, Kingston[,] Jamaica, — is a great student of Land Shells, & especially of Slugs, as I dare say you know, & he would probably be glad to exchange with you, the slugs of Jamaica & Australia.

I do not know if you if you ever make Collecting excursions in Australia, but if you do, and especially if you visit the higher elevations of the mountains, & [3] could collect for me a few tubers of your terrestrial orchids or bulbs of liliaceous plants, I should be very glad of them, as I am greatly interested in the cultivation of such plants both in the open air & in a greenhouse. I will just add that the tubers should be tied up in a packet of dry moss to prevent evaporation of their own moisture, & will then come well by parcel-post either tied up in paper or calico, or in a paper box, — but a box is quite unnecessary if well enclosed in moss & paper. I should like to have the botanical name if [4] it can be given, & also the kind of soil the plant grows in ^{whether wet or dry,} & the month of flowering.

Returning to your land-shells the greatest desiderative to the explanation of their distribution is to know the means by which they reach so many oceanic islands. Can you not try & solve this difficulty by observing the eggs & the newly hatched young, & thus detecting the mode of transmission.

Believe me | Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]