WCP2196

Letter (WCP2196.2086)

[1]1

156 Brattle St.2

Cambridge, [Massachusetts, USA]

Feb.y 7/[18]87

Dear Mr Wallace

I was glad to get your appreciative letter of the first inst[ant].2

You will see by a footnote at the end of my Review that fossil beetles are announced from the paleozoic rocks and are in presumably good hands in Berlin.2 The great antiquity of the insect-stock is a point I have urged in several memoirs on paleozoic insects; but I have been repeatedly startled to find in a multitude [2]3 of instances in various divisions of the Animal Kingdom how new types seem to appear full fledged as it were with great abruptness. It seems to me to point to an immense and immediate development of some gifted comer into a region where there was little "Struggle for existence", a region which was practically a terra nova [Latin: new land] — with room to spread, multiply and vary ad libitum [Latin: at will]. And is not this what we should look for in a world where the diversity of forms with all their intricate [3] interrelations was vastly less than now?

Should you come to Boston again4 I hope you will favor [sic] me with a call and let me show you some of the 15000 fossil insects I have in one small room. I should be pleased to see you at any time and can nearly always be found at home.

Not being sure of the permanence of your Washington address,6I venture to send this as I sent the pamphlet.5

Yours very truly | Sam[ue]l H, Scudder6 [signature] [4]6

1
Text in another hand in the top right of the page reads "184".
2
Scudder, S. H. 1886. Systematic review of our present knowledge of fossil insects including myriapods and arachnids. Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey, 5 (31). [p. 106]. Washington, WA, USA: Government Printing Office.
3
Text in another hand in the top right of the page reads "185".
4
ARW had been invited to Boston to give a series of lectures at the Lowell Institute.
5
There is a stamp of the top of a crown in red ink on the edge of the paper here.
6
"Scudder" is written in pencil in an unknown hand on this page, which is otherwise blank.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2196.2086)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Lucas, Paula [2018-08-15] Transcription checked by Ghosh, Susan [2022-07-12]

Please cite as “WCP2196,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2196