WCP3883

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset

Nov[embe]^r 12th. 1897

Dear Mr Ridley¹

Many thanks for remembering me again & sending me some more Bulbophyllums². They arrived quite in good order, but they have a disagreeable habit of dropping most of their leaves soon after being exposed to the air though I keep them well shaded and nearly dry for some time. But I think some of them will grow.

I have just been reading your report on the caves which Clement [2] Reid³ has sent me: I can realise the place exactly having been among some of the Bornean limestone hills & also some in Celebes⁴. The number of the caves is rather against finding anything and also the circumstances you refer to. I am inclined to think that rock-shelters would be more likely places ^{in the Tropics}. When I went with Indians up the Rio Negro to get the Cock-of-the-Rock⁵ we stayed a week under an overhanging rock.

Any nice cave entrance, with water inside or close by and commanding a good view so as to see an enemy approaching [3] would be a likely place I should think. Did not you get some good orchids there? Should you go to any mountains again can you get a lot of samples of mosses at different altitudes, & use for packing, so that Mr. Mitten may have the picking over them. Even among that short bluish moss you always use he has found some rare minute Hepaticae⁶. I always send him all the moss I get with orchids, & ^he generally finds something interesting, and also raises curious plants from the dust he shakes out of them.

As to the cave-snake I cannot help thinking that they must be [4] wrong ^{at the B.M.7} in its identification with a common forest snake. Did you not say the eyes were unusually large for a snake? The adaptive colouration & peculiar habits are all in favour of its being distinct.

Are there no rock-shelters in the granite or primitive-rock country? Being less abundant there would be a better change of their having been used by early man.

The Cypripediums⁸you sent me last year — C[ypripedium]. barbatum & C[ypripedium]. exul — are growing well, but have not flowered yet. The Cirrhopetalum Medusae⁹ is also looking fairly well but makes very little growth so far. The spring sunshine will perhaps make it move.

Yours very Sincerely | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

H. N. Ridley Esq.¹⁰