WCP4378

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Jan[uar]^y.17^th. 1890

My dear Mr. Poulton

I am sorry you lay so much stress on my objection to your tabular arrangement of Colours, which was not so much to the arrangement itself, fundamentally, but to what seemed to me the unnecessary complication of the presentation, — but that complication was no doubt partly due to my now seeing a clean final proof.

However to illustrate what [2] I mean I have just noted down a classification, which though less complete & systematic than yours is I think much clearer & more easily intelligible — in the arrangement & presentation of it. But even here C. of the 1^st Series might almost as well have been placed in the IInd [second] Series, because though concealed as an enemy it is rendered visible as an attraction.

So again in Mimicry, though there is no actual concealment there is a potential concealment [3] by the resemblance to a creature other than themselves. It is these complications in the subject matter that render it I think unadvisable to classify too minutely into all its ramifications.

Anyhow I think if you could reduce your table to some simpler form it would be better.

I will fill up the form as well as I can & send to address given.

Kind remembrances to Mrs. Poulton.

Yours very faithfully| Alfred R. Wallace [signature]