WCP2258

[1]

[?]ory

North End,

East Woodhay,

Newbury —

Sep 6^th 1870

My dear Sir,

Many thanks for your kind note¹. I am staying with my brother² here, but shall be most probably going home to Thruxton for a day next week, when I will, with pleasure send you the Papilios: I only regret that I did not bring home more specimens, as the black variety abounded everywhere.

I had a fine young cuckoo myself early in the summer, but unfortunately I had not then [2] read your interesting remarks about "hairy caterpillars,"³ and consequently gave my bird its liberty. D^r Bree⁴, however, tells me that he has put an intelligent youth⁵ to search for hairy caterpillars, and will inform me of the result. I know he is an opponent of your theory, but, as a naturalist and gentleman he cannot be otherwise than truthful in this matter.

At p. 227 in "Nat[ural]. Selection"⁶ you say, when speaking of the nesting habits of birds: — "The chimney and house swallows are a standing proof of a change⁷ [3] of habit since chimneys and houses were built and in America this change has taken place within about three hundred years."

A still more recent change has taken place in Newfoundland. Thirty years ago, and perhaps less, the herring gulls used to breed on some island rocks in a large lake called "Parson's Pond", which is separated from the sea only by a high pebbly beach. Within the period above stated, high tides and heavy seas have shifted the course of the brook flowing from the lake into the sea, and caused a greater, and, consequently, more rapid fall⁸ [4] of fresh water, which has so shallowed that part of the lake where the gulls were in the habit of breeding, that reason showed them it was no longer safe to build on rocks easily accessible to their common enemy the fox, and, consequently, they betook themselves to some neighbouring spruces and balsam firs, not much over a hundred yards distant from their old breeding station.

Besides the altering of the brook by the wind and waves, two other brooks, which flowed into that part of the lake, were "stented" by beavers; so that the water forced itself at right-angles from the "stents", and only a tythe-part eventually entered the lake, being so close to the sea —

Yours very faithfully | Henry Reeks

A[lfred]. R[ussel]. Wallace. Esq &c. &c —