WCP4043

[1]¹

The Dell, Grays, Essex

April 11th. 1875

Dear Newton²

I really don’t know why I write "Lombock" unless it is that it looks more English but "Lombok" is undoubtedly the more correct Malay form, & is as you say amply sufficient.

You will however be decidedly wrong if you attempt to alter the name of the strait that has been in use for centuries probably, & you will deservedly fail, for what becomes of your law of priority?

The Meliphagous bird of Bali [2] is Ptilotis limbata mull. Common from Timor to Lombock, & therefore evidently a stray immigrant perhaps now settled ^established in Bali.

I heard that the small white Cockatoos of Lombock were also to be found on the parts of Bali opposite, but did not see them myself.

Working through the extinct fauna has cleared up my mind greatly on some points, & will cause me to modify somewhat the MSS. as you have seen it. My conclusions had [3] been arrived at solely from a consideration of existing distribution, — & on the whole the extinct forms support my views.

It has just struck me that we do not possess a single British Ornithologist, to my knowledge, — that is a man who studies birds as a whole, & knows those of one country as well as those of another. G. R. Gray³ was the last British Ornithologist!! Is not that rather a disgrace to the country that has produced, and can still support, an "Ibis"?

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

[4] Britain produces Botanists in plants,— Entomologists one or two, — Coleopterists several, — why not one Ornithologist?