WCP4187

[1]

Broadstone, Dorset.

July 31st. 1903

Dr. Karl Jordan¹

Dear Sir

Many thanks for your letter about collectors. I think Mr. Rothschild's² arrangements are by far the best & most satisfactory for both parties, as it leaves the Collector free to collect other groups as well as Birds & Butterflies.

I hope my young friend will be able to obtain the means of going up either to B.[ritish] Guiana or to Cuba, as I am sure he would (if he lives) be one of the very best collectors & observers [2] who have ever been collecting in the tropics. As to Cuba being expensive, it may be so to travellers who live in hotels &c. but I don't think it would be so to my friend who would live with the native planters or wood-cutters & just as they do. He is a skilled mechanic, & can do any kind of wood & iron work, having been brought up in the workshops of his father who is a coach-builder. He has made beautiful insect-cabinets for himself & for some of his friends & could probably earn something — at all events his board — by doing repairs on any farm or plantation.

Is the Mr. Sehaus you speak of as having collected in Cuba, now in England or on the Continent [3] as I shall like to obtain some information from him as to the timber-cutting industry in the forests, as these would be the best places by far, for an insect-collector. The reason I got so many Anthribidae, Curculionidae, & Longicorns, was, because I always sought for timber-cutters or any new clearings in the forest — & if there were none kept a man at work cutting down trees.

Mr. Pascoe³ had all my species of Curculionidae, including I think the Anthribidae, & perhaps the Oxford Museum acquired them after his death.

Hardly any European collectors know how to collect Coleoptera in the trophies unless they have several years experience or unusual luck at starting.

Do you know any ^English beetle-collectors who would advance £.50 or £.100 to such a collector as my friend, to be repaid by first choice of all [4] insects but Lepidoptera?

Believe me | Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]