WCP4512

[1]¹

Corfe View, Parkstone.

Sep^t. 6th. 1889

My dear Meldola²

We have been so very busy getting straight, receiving & paying visits, seeing the country &c. &c. that I have had no time to write letters. I am afraid this may be too late to catch you at Gomshall, before you go north to Newcastle.

The country here is grand for heaths, & the heather & heath blossoms are wonderfully fine such as I have never seen any where else. Willie³ has found two full-grown lavae of Saturnia [2] and the fine spotted lizard Lacerta agilis is abundant, & some specimens most beautifully coloured.

I am coaching up Willie a little in his mathematics, & should like to have some of the later exn. papers to see what he will have to do. I have written to the Secretary at Gresham College but he declines to send them. If, when you go home, as I suppose you will do from Gomshall, before going you to Newcastle you can [3] find one or two, perhaps you will send them to me. Also if you have a copy of Clerk Maxwell’s⁴ "Matter & Motion"⁵ — will you lend it me for a bit, as I think it is out of print & I want it to find definitions of “radian” "trace" & other terms, which the circular on the Examinations &c. says he will be exd. on, but which the Schoolmasters never teach. He is going into Prof. S. Thompsons⁶ department [4] not Prof. Perry’s — as I think he is better adapted for the latter ^former, & there seem to be more varied openings.

With kind remembrances to your wife & mother,

Believe me| yours faithfully| Alfred R. Wallace [signature]