WCP5511

[1]

The Dell, Grays, Essex.

Feb^y 15th. 1873

W[illia]m H[enry]. Edwards Esq.

Dear Sir

I must apologise for being so long delayed acknowledging the receipt of Part 9 of your beautiful work on the Butterflies of N. America¹, but the fact is that I only heard of its being at the British Museum a few months ago, and as I now seldom go there I only received it a few weeks back.

It is an exceedingly interesting number, and goes far I think to elucidate one mode at least in which species are formed; for if the conditions were such that a certain variety could only produce a brood at the season when it reproduces its like, it would become a fixed species.

[2]The varieties of Grapta interrogationis are even more interesting, as they are most easily recognised; and as they are of a character very common among Nymphalidae, they will no doubt lead to many more cases of dimorphism being discovered.

I have now almost given up attending to butterflies but am none the less interested in such careful observations as you are making and which are a real advance in Entomology.

I am now amusing myself in making a garden out of a bit of wild ground, and am trying to establish in it as many interesting or ornamental plants as I can. If you have any botanists [3] in your neighbourhood who would get me a small collection of seeds of your prettiest wild perennial flowers, small shrubs, or creepers — especially such as grow in elevated & exposed situations & on the mountains [—] I should be very much obliged.

A dozen seeds of half a dozen sorts would go in an envelope for letter postage. If interested in [one letter struck through] horticulture I could send some Australian seeds in Exchange.

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

I enclose a carte²— I ought to have sent the "Address" before but I laid by your letter thinking to have your book in a few days & it quite passed out of my mind. I now [4] post it with this & hope you may find the ideas on Nomenclature &c such as you may be disposed to follow.

A.R.W. [signature]