WCP4415

[1]

Broadstone, Dorset.

Feb^y 23rd. 1903

My dear Poulton¹

Up to about 15 years ago I thought I was born in 1822. I suppose I had been told so. But I then came into possession of an old Prayer Book in which the date of birth of my father is given by his father, & of all my brothers & sisters in my father’s handwriting, & there I am put down as born in 1823 Jan. 8th & the date is repeated for my baptism Feb. 16th. 1823.

I therefore found myself then [2] a year younger than I had supposed, and I gave the correct date to Mr. Bettany² for an Introduction to the cheap edition of my "Amazon & Rio Negro"³ in 1889.

I am still very busy, & all the time I can spare from the garden I give to a new book I am writing — a kind of pot-boiler — though one that I am immensely interested in, but that you will not care about.

I can quite understand the West African butterflies going Eastward to the Equatorial Lakes as it is mainly a question of the [3] extension of forests. We knew hardly anything of all that region when I made my map of African sub regions which had to be largely guess-work.

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