WCP4418

[1]

Broadstone, Dorset.

July 24^th. 1903

My dear Poulton

We shall be much pleased to see you & your two daughters on your cycle tour. My daughter & a little boy will be here or we could offer you beds ourselves. There is an Inn at the Station here, but Wimborne is only 3 miles off, & is worth seeing for the Minster, & is a nice clean town with plenty of Inns.

Thanks for the very full information about places for a Collector. My young friend does not care about making money [2] so much as collecting for himself & observing, so that he can just pay his expenses, or nearly so. All the distant places you mention are out of the question, & West Africa is I fear both dangerous & expensive in many ways, owing to its being exclusively a trading "rum-&-gunpowder" Country. I think myself the choice lays between Burma & Brit[ish] Guiana. Burma is an[letter crossed out] enormous country with three or four great rivers & parallel ranges of mountains, — each valley, I have no doubt, as in other [3] great continental ^tropical valleys, producing a large proportion [of] peculiar species. Have there been any thorough beetle collectors there? and other orders, besides Lepidoptera of which there must I am sure be hosts of the smaller groups new.

Have there been any thorough insect-collectors in Brit[ish] Guiana? That would have the advantage of nearness and cheapness, probably, both in living & wages in the interior; & he is just the fellow who would breed & observe. If he goes he would probably stay away for years & must have some [4]¹ trustworthy agent. Is there anything against Janson & Son.? Or Col[onel] Swinhoe?

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