WCP4191

[1]

Old Orchard,

Broadstone,

Wimborne.

Jan[uar]y. 3rd 1910

Dear D^r. Hartert

Many thanks for the valuable information you have so promptly given me. During the last year I have written 30—40 people in various parts of the world & to Kew, the B[ritish]. M[useum]. &c. but have hardly ever got the information I wanted so quickly & so completely as from you. What a wonderful fauna & flora New Guinea [2] possesses! It is certainly the most unique & the richest island in the world & I ha am looking forward with the greatest interest to the results of the Expedition to the great Snowy Moun[tain]s just started. I very much doubt, however, if they will get there, as unknown N[ew]. Guinea is not a country to be rushed. I consider a small party with a dozen or so of local Malays, should settle on the Coast for a year, first making [3] friends with the natives, getting known by report to the interior tricks, as good white-men, & then gradually getting acquainted with the interior. Trying to reach the Mountains right off, without such preparation, I rather fear a disaster.

Your paper on peculiar forms of British Birds has greatly interested me. We see in them "species in the making" — I shall quote it. I also read your long note on nomenclature (p. 215) with very much interest, and wish your plan could be adopted. The [4] changes in names, both of Birds & Butterflies, since I was familiar with them 30 years ago, are such that I feel quite lost. We shall never have a stable nomenclature until an International Committee is founded to fix the nomenclature for ever, — printing lists of described species of all classes or orders (separately) down to certain dates, say first to 1850 — widespread use, to be the guide rather than priority.

Accept me sympathy in your domestic anxiety — & Believe me | Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]