WCP4426

[1]

Broadstone, Wimborne

April 3^rd. 1905

My dear Poulton

Many thanks for copy of your "Address" which I have read with great pleasure & will forward to Birch next mail. You have, I think, produced a splendid and unanswerable set of facts proving the non-heredity [heritability] of acquired characters. I was particularly pleased with the portion on "instincts" in which the argument is especially clear and strong. I am afraid, however, the whole subject is above & beyond the average "Entomologist" or insect-collector, but it will be of great value to all students of evolution. It is curious how few even of the more acute minds take the trouble to reason out carefully, the teaching of certain facts — as in the case of Romanes & the "Variable protection" [2] and as I showed also in the case of Mivart (and also Romanes & Gulick) declaring that isolation alone, without nat[ural] selection, could produce perfect & well-defined species. (See Nature Jan[uary] 12, 1899). There is one short passage which puzzled me & which I had to read twice or three times to see the point, which is quite sound but too condensed. It is at p.36, bottom, quotation from your forum paper. It wants much amplifying to make it clear to the ordinary reader. I should be interested to know how many readers would grasp the point at the first reading!

Now I want to consult you about Birch. I am most anxious (as he is too, of course,) that he should find a really [3] rich locality, that has not been so much worked as to be exhausted, & that is accessible for him. Trinidad is both very poor (as compared with the richest parts of trop[ical] America) and too well worked. B[ritish] Guiana is nearly as bad. Brazil is at present not available — too far off & too uncertain. He longs to go up the Orinoko [sic] either to the borders of the Rio Negro forest or up the Mela or Guaviare to the foot of the Andes, — but both would require a minimum capital of £50, & he has not much more than £10 or at most £20 to expect from his collections up to now. He referred me to a book he has been reading by Wickham (Rough Notes &[c].) who went from Trinidad up the Orinoco [sic] to Fernando de Atabapo, & to R[io] Negro & Para (rubber collecting) but a good describer & something of a naturalist. From his account the forests are nowhere luxuriant & grand until you reach quite the Upper Orinoco, a long & expensive journey, [4]¹ and even then I doubt their being really rich in insects. The best place is no doubt Javita, my furthest point on the Atabapo R[iver] but even that was nothing compared to the Lower Amazon; and now when I try to recall my insect-collecting at various places on the Rio Negro & Uaupes during nearly 2 years, I cannot remember having ever seen or caught a Morpho! while all butterflies & beetles were miserably scarce both in species & individuals, & I fear the Upper Orinoko [sic] will be no better. Now in this same volume of Wickham’s, is another journey to the Mosquito Coast — to Blewfields [sic], & GreyTown, & up the rivers. He notices here at both places, the immense number of butterflies in the forest, Morphos & other large species down to the smallest, also of all kinds of insects, & of birds in proportion. Also the immense luxuriance of the forest & of parasites. He also says (& so do other writers) that [5]² both places, though at sea-level are perfectly healthy owing to constant sea-breezes. This district was formerly English, but is now <Vene> Nicaraguan, but as many of the Indians speak English & there are Moravian Missionaries at Bluefields [sic] — probably English also. Belt was about 100 miles inland, & he found the forests very rich in Insects, & collected many, but he was not a professional collector, & I presume did not collect many spec[ime]ns of each species. But my chief point is this. There are evidently wide areas in tropical America poor in insects — others rich. The Amazon & Brazil coasts are rich. The Guianas & Orinoko [sic] valley poor[.] Central America rich. Now for a thorough collector like Birch, a rich district even if more worked [6] will be far more productive & profitable than a poor district even if much less worked — & if both are ^about equally worked, then the advantages of a rich district are overwhelming, — especially for all "protect[ive]" forms, which depend f upon ^severe competition, & therefore on abundance of species & individuals. Again, there are still Mines in the interior, where there are sure to be English or German managers, he might go to; but the great point is, that at Blewfields [sic] itself he would have a splendid collecting ground without any further travel, and abundance of Indians as [7] collectors for him. All that region is so rich & so broken up into separate valleys, that it is practically a bit of the high Andes brought down to easy accessibility, & probably [word crossed out] as rich. There will probably there be 5 times as many species to be got at one place, as at Trinidad or even on the Lower Orinoko [sic], & probably 5 times as many rarities & new species; besides the almost certainty of beetles & land-shells being abundant.

I expect he can reach there from Trinidad by coasting vessels, or if not, by going first to some intermediate point on the coast where he could also collect [8]³ if stranded; and above all he would have direct communication home; whereas, far up the Orinoko [sic] he might be ^many months without news, & might have great difficulty in getting his collections safely home.

Will you please consider all this, get any information from any one who knows, & then I will write to him to keep it in mind & to get what local information he can. Of course Godman will say that Central America is worked out by his collectors, but that I very much doubt. It is too rich!

Let me know as soon as you can.

Yours very truly| Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

^{I will write to the Tring people what they think.4}