WCP5225

Letter (WCP5225.5753)

[1]

9, St. Mark’s Crescent

Regent’s Park

London. N.W.

Jan[uar]y. 26th.1870

Sir

Dr. John L. Le Conte1 has recommended me to write to you,2 to ascertain if the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge Massachusetts,3 would wish to purchase a collection of Insects of old all orders formed in South Australia during the last 30 years by my cousin T. A. Wilson [sic] Esq.4 & which he is now obliged to part with.

The Collection consists approximately [2]

of the following specimens & species

species specimens
Coleoptera 2650 7500
Orthoptera 130 200
Neuroptera 100 200
Hymenoptera 600 1000
Lepidoptera 400 800
Homoptera &[c]. 200 500
Diptera — 100 300
Duplicates — ... 500
4180 11,000

About three fourths of these are from the comparatively little known colony of South Australia, and as they form an entire private collection of an amateur resident there [3] are many unique & they are mostly in fine condition.

To make the collection more valuable, I would if you desired it have all the species authentically named by comparison with types in English collections, also indicating those wh[ich]. appear to be new.

For the entire collection thus arranged, & packed for transmission to America, the price would be £200 which is about 4½d a specimen and less than a shilling per species. [4]

Should you not wish the whole, I sh[oul]d. be glad to receive an offer for any part of the collection.

It will probably arrive in the spring or summer.

I remain | Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Dr. Hagen.5

John Lawrence LeConte (1825-1883). American entomologist.
See John Lawrence LeConte to ARW, 19 Janaury 1870 (WCP2237.2127).
The Museum of Comparative Zoology was founded in 1859 by Louis Agassiz and was designed to illustrate the variety and comparative relationships of animal life. (Winsor, M. P. 1991. Reading the Shape of Nature: Comparative Zoology at the Agassiz Museum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp.9-12).
Wilson, Charles Algernon ("Algernon", "Ally") (1818-1884). Australian solicitor, public servant and entomologist; published under the pseudonym "Naturae Amator"; ARW’s cousin, son of his uncle Thomas Wilson (1787-1863).
"Dr. Hagen" is written in ARW's hand in the bottom left-hand corner of page 1.

Please cite as “WCP5225,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP5225