WCP2521

Letter (WCP2521.2411)

[1]1

Helm,

Windemere.

July 1 1913.

My dear Dr Wallace

I trust you are keeping as strong & well as when I saw last in 1911. I have just got home again from Pará after 15 months & propose to return for another year or so in October, taking out with me a decent 2 manual organ for my new church on the old British cemetery.

This is now complete & has been in use since Dec 1, & the new British Consul, an admirable man, is [2] keeping the services going for me in my absence. Except for general ailments & a little malaria the place is now perfectly healthy, & we have not seen anything more of the yellow fever since May 1911. This is still more or less present in Manáos & Liará, the former of which I went to with my Bishop last January for a week.

I have enjoyed perfect health all the while & had a good time in every way. The community is not a large one, &, save for a limited number, not over keen on supporting any religious institution. However I keep in touch with them all, and we all remain the best of friends.

[3] I wish you could come out again & see how far your old haunts have changed. You are often talked of by our young men out there, & y my valued copy of your book2 on Pará & the Amazon is in constant demand. Is it not going to be reprinted, as I shd like to take back half a dozen copies? I know of nothing decent which covers the same ground since the days of Wallace & Bates.3

I should much like to see you again while in England, if that were possible, & tell you in some detail of my varied interests in the place. Entomologically, & should add botanically, I have had a thoroughly interesting & profitable time, & have been enabled once [4] again, not only to send home many cases of set insects, some eight of which I have just brought with me but alas to make a considerable number of new illustrations of strange larvae & work out their life histories. Dr Hüter.4 the director of the Museum & Gardens, has been an excellent friend in supplying all the information necessary on the botanical side. The study of the Papilion, of which I took 18 species in Pará, has been one of my specialities, & the extraordinarily close intimacy of some 8 out of 11 of the Aristolochia group has furnished me with abundant material for a discourse upon the relation of species. I wrote up some 60 pages of this on the voyage home for the Z. S or Tring Novitates Zoological, but I feel the need of a master mind & should welcome your criticism if I could get it without bothering you.

With kindest remembrances & regards to your wife5 & family6,7

Very sincerely yours | A Miles Moss8 [signature]

In ARW’s handwriting, “Mr. Miles Moss (Revd) Para."
Wallace, A. R. 1853. Narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, with an account of the native tribes, and observations on the climate, geology, and natural history of the Amazon valley. London: Reeve & Co.
Bates, Henry Walter (1825-1892). British naturalist, explorer and close friend of ARW.
Hüter, Rupert (1834-1919). Austrian clergyman and botanist.
Wallace (née Mitten), Annie (1846-1914). British. Wife of ARW; daughter of William Mitten.
Wallace, Violet Isabel (1869-1945). Daughter of ARW; teacher.
Wallace, William Greenell (1871-1951). Son of ARW. Married Elizabeth Carr Whittle (1888-1976) on 29 September 1919 and had three children: Elizabeth Anne (25 December 1920 - 3 January 1921), Alfred John Russel Wallace (6 March 1922 - 9 February 2017).
Moss, Arthur Miles (1873-1948). Anglican priest and entomologist.

Please cite as “WCP2521,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2521