WCP2840

[1]

40 St. Lukes Road W ¹

Nov[ember]. 24. [19]04

Dear Dr Wallace

I have been suffering a good deal of late from some kind of gastric trouble, which has caused me to leave things undone, & that will explain delay in replying to your letter. Your three questions are all interesting, & I am ashamed not be able to give you some help about the air-plants. I have seen them in Buenos Ayres but have no very distinctive collections of them, & I fear I know [2] nothing about them. The only correspondent I now have in the Argentine country is a sister in Buenos Ayres. She resided at one time in Cordova, & I will write to her & ask her if she knows any botanist or other person who could be of any assistance in the procuring of your plants. I had a brother in Cordova, in a good position, who could have been able to get anything; but alas! he is no more. I am often at Kew, & when I next see [name illeg.] I shall ask [3]^{2 3} him if this plant is as rare in this country as you think.

I do not remember Lope de Vega⁴’s ghost story but have a vague idea that I heard it long years ago. It takes little prompting to send me to George Borrow⁵ & I have been looking up the passages in Wild Wales to which you refer. What an extraordinary man he was — a braggard, a poser, a mixer of exaggerated truths & inventions in his writings, & yet he never fails to interest!

I don’t think it will be difficult to unearth the ghost story, & I have written to my friend Cunninghame Graham⁶ to ask him, if he does not know it, to get it from one of [4] his friends, Major Martin Horne and Fitzmaurice Kelly⁷, both great in Spanish literature. I read little Spanish now: it is not easy to get it here.

I suppose Lope de Vega was the most prolific writer the world has ever known, unless we except Mercurius Trismegistus⁸, [word illeg.] & philosopher: & one doubts that he did really write as many as 40,000 volumes.

About the habit of the female adder, I have almost too much to say. I had it in my mind some years ago to write a book about serpents, & collected evidence of their habit. For one thing I tried to describe how far back our knowledge of it may be traced. Topsell⁹, [5] ^{10 11} so far as I know is the first English writer on Natural History who speaks of it (1608). It is a great pity he did not say how he came by his information; whether he got it in barks or found it a common being among the people — I cannot get beyond Harrison¹²’s "Description of Britain", but I will send you on our "Saturday Review" article written at a time when the subject was new discussed in the Field. Two or three years ago the subject came up again in the same journal, & many european[?] [word illeg.] from various parts of the country testified to having witnessed the act of the young adders taking refuge in their mother’s [6] throat; & in several cases the old adder was killed & the young found in her body. The letters from eye-witnesses which have appeared from time to time in the Field & other journals during the last 20 or 25 years would fill a volume, I think the Field one can always see & I did not keep cuttings, & I am not sure that I shall ever take the subject up. My great wish was to see the thing myself, & I have tried hard to see it during the past five or six years but so far without success. This is not strange as the adder is always most difficult to find in July & August when the harbor is thickets & this creature [7] ^{13 14} keeps more in the shade than at other times. I also believe that after bringing forth her young the dam is shyer & more alert than at other times.

There is a good deal of matters in Dr. Leighton’s "British Serpents" which you have perhaps not seen, & I will therefore send. Miss Hopley’s "History of Snakes" has nothing in it; but some years ago she gave me her notes & papers thinking they w[oul]^d. be of some use to me, & among them is the papers & some letters which I also send. This you can return with the book & Sat[urday]. Rev[iew]. article any time when it suits your convenience: I am [8] in no hurry.

I may mention that Currer was acquainted with Palisot de Beauvais¹⁵’ observations in the Crotalus swallowing its young to protect them, & that from this he jumped to the conclusion that the female fer-de-lance had the same habit, & that the indians of Martinique were mistaken in thinking that the dam devoured her young. But it is now pretty well established that this serpent does devour her young; that she is amazing & prolific, bring forth from 100 to 200 young; that she resorts to some open ground & Travels while giving birth to the [9] ^{16 17} young; &, finally, that when she has finished the process, that she turns back & devours as many of them as she can find lying, where she left them. This strikes one as an instinct [word illeg.] ^on, or arising from, a perversion of the maternal instinct of the adder & other viperian serpents. Yet we can inquire how in the long run this vorastious[sic] instinct would actually come to be advantageous to the species. The most alert young — those which most quickly responded to the new conditions would escape to transmit their vigour & activity to the race. We know that the fer-de-lance [10] was extremely abundant in Martinique & St. Lucia, in spite of its’ eating[?] the "Cribo" snake, until the introduction of that worse pest the Indian mongoose.

Today winter has come down on us with a vengeance; but I do hope that sometime when the days begin to brighten I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again. I have other friends too in that region — Dr. Gerkie, & Mr Bosworth Smith at Bingham’s Melcombe.

Yours sincerely | ¹⁸ W. H. Hudson¹⁹[signature]