Holly House, Barking.E[ssex].
April 28th,1871
Dear Mr Dresser
I ought to have acknowledged the receipt of your letter of 6th Feb. & thanked you for the information it contained, but the fact is, that about that time, I obtained a piece of land I had been trying after for a year & a half, & have ever since been so busy clearing, road making, & planting, & preparing for building a house, that insects, birds, [2] & Geog[raphical]. distribution have alike been driven out of my head & I have been thinking of nothing else than how to make my own nest as pretty and comfortable as I can.
Would it not be as well if you can spare the time, to put together the valuable information you possess and write a paper on the Geographical distribution [3] of the Birds of Scandinavia & the Northern parts of the Palaearctic Region? It would be very useful to naturalists at in general, & probably also to yourself & Sharpe1 in your work on the Birds of Europe.2
I do not expect I shall find time to work at the subject of Geog[raphical]. Distribution again till the end of Autumn, when I hope to be settled in my new abode.
Believe me | Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]
H. E. Dresser Esq.
Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP1819.1708)]
For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
Please cite as “WCP1819,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 7 November 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP1819