WCP4393

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Sept[embe]^r.. 25^th 1893

My dear Poulton

I have written to Macmillan to send you a dozen copies of the coloured map if they have any in stock, but have not yet had a reply. I have found however a few spare copies of the maps uncoloured, which I send herewith, & which may anyhow be useful.

I suppose you were not at Nottingham, & did not get the letter, paper & photographs I sent you there, but to be opened by the Sec[retary] of Sect[io]n D. in case you were not there. It was about a wonderful & perfectly [2] authenticated case of a woman who dressed the arm of a gamekeeper after amputation, & 6 or 7 months afterwards had a child born without the fore arm on the right side, exactly corresponding in form & length of stump to that of the man. Photographs of the man, & boy when 7 or 8 years old, were taken by the doctor physician of the Hospital where the man’s arm was cut off, & they show a most striking correspondence.

These, with my short paper appear to have produced an effect, for a Committee of Sect[ion] D. has been appointed to collect evidence on [3] this & other matters.

I am glad you are showing the Geog[raphical] Dist[ribution] of the insects. I do not know if you have any funds for purchases for the Museum, but if you have I wish you could get authority to spend all the money in species illustrative of Mimicry, to be kept together as a separate Collection illustrating Mimicry. Nobody has yet attempted to do it & it ought to be done. Unfortunately many of the mimicking species are rare, but numbers are common, & there is certainly no part [4]¹ of a collection of insects that would be more interesting, or that admits of such attractive exhibition, & which is also so remarkable an illustration of selection & protection. The same collection would illiustrate warning colours, since those that possess warning colours are almost always the subjects of imitation.

I wonder some rich amateur has not taken it up, instead of all going on the same tack of getting the greatest number of species.

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