WCP2468

[1]

Eureka City

Barberton

Transvaal

30 July 1893

A. R. Wallace Esq. F.R.S.

Dear Sir,

Very many thanks for your letter of March 30th & for the copy of "Essays on National Selection & Tropical Nature" you were good enough to send me. I have read them with much interest, & found much light thrown upon many points more briefly discussed in "Darwinism".

I am glad to hear the bulbs arrived safely & only regret you troubled to forward postage on them. Anything I may be able to send in future I trust you will give me the pleasure of sending carriage free. As it is now winter there are dew bulbs to be seen, but I send some with red-flowers found growing on the spurs of the Makongua mountains, about 3000 f[ee]t — 4000 f[ee]t above sea level.

Those sent before came from this valley of Fever [1 word illeg.] about 2000 f[ee]t above sea-level. The soil is mainly hard res & dry, formed by decomposed granite; clay-slates & quartzites are also common rocks. We are fourteen miles east of Barberton in the valley below Eureka City, both given in plant atlases such as Johnston's World-wide Atlas.

[2] I have been unable to get the max. & min. months temperatures, but roughly speaking the dry cold healthy season extends from May 15 to October 15, & the wet hot fever season during the remainder of the year.

Dr. Rendall has been staying with me recently & I have been able to assist him somewhat in his collections, some of the specimens being found by the British Museum authorities to be new to science & others hitherto unknown in the Transvaal.

Owing to the very unhealthy past season I had had very little opportunity of studying the habits of antelope & consequently my notes are not complete enough to be worth while forwarding.

The statement on page 453 of "Darwinism" re put of Apus, I have a tame little guy monkey which when walking always places the sole perfectly flat on the ground, but assumes position shown in Fig. 37 when sitting or crouching.

Although a very trite remark, I have frequently been surprised to find how often, assuming the Darwinism theory, the external characteristics & habits of animals, from man downwards, conform most naturally to its requirements, & these unexpected corroborations form to me an even increasing volume of proof.

I am, | Yours very sincerely, | W. A. Caldicott [signature]