WCP564

[1] 1.)

Wykeham House.

Oxford.

Oct. 22 / 1893

My dear Wallace,

Many thanks for the maps. I am having them coloured by hand & shall then frame them & distribute them about the room.

I quite intend to spend a grt.. deal on a complete collection illustrating mimicry. Luckily we have already a lot of splendid things in the [2] general collections, & from these I can take the duplicates & make incorporate in the mimicry collection.

Yesterday we found lots of splendid mimicks of Hymenoptera among the beetles. Most of them quite undescribed altho' some like the one figured in "Darwinism".¹

In one, the elytra were of the usual length, but reduced [3] in thes almost to threads. They were all Longicorns allied to Clytus our own genus which also mimicks wasps but far less perfectly (you remember I shared you drawing of one).

Some of these had magnificent hairy orange & black legs just like some Bombus or other bee.

I shall try to find the species they mimick in [4] our collⁿ of Hymenoptera.

No, I was not at Nottingham. he here ^{must be} so try next year when B.Aⁿ² comes here that I took a holiday, having been a regular attendant for many years.

The evidence for any conclusion must be strong in proportion to the inherent improbability of the conclusion — so I think. And thus harmonious ^{assumed result} of maternal impression seems to be to be essentially importable [5] 2.) from many considerations.

1) The parts of the foetus are formed so early & the impression is usually so late in pregnancy that the amputated or removed foetal limb ought to be found. Jacob's ^supposed a experiment on the sheep in genesis,³ indicated took a more probable line (tho' I think a very improbable one) in making the impression at copulation.

2). on the whole the ^original influence of father & mother are equal. But if the mother can in addition cause dual effects [6] from marked impressions, is it not likely that all impressions w^d. produce some effect & that the mammalian offspring w^d. be on the whole not the average, but nearer the mother than father? or at any

3). Walter Heap⁴ has caused the foetal development to of one Rabbit to take place in the uterus of another of different breed & habits, but by transplanting the impregnated [7] ovum. No effect of any kind was produced, the offspring being entirely normal.

4). By extra-uterine foetation sometimes occurring in the human species & pursuing a normal course, seems to indicate the true view to be one wh: recognizes that the foetus is a parasite & all hereditary influence to have been due to the original germ. The parasitic being only affected afterwards, by the quality [8] & of the blood, as it cant be in later in life by that of its food.

5.) It is very difficult to believe that heredity is a subject to different laws in the oviparous animals, as compared with viviparous. All these considerations seem to me to demand that the evidence shall be very abundant & complete, that the the tendency has been for it to diminish as Doctors have been better trained in Science. [9] 3.) I have sifted evidence better. Now very few of the younger more scientific doctors believe it. Formerly all believed it.

I am now struggling hard to get more space & more appliances & more funds. But everything here has to go thro' so many committees it is hard to progress rapidly.

With kind regards & thanks| Yours sincerely | E. B. Poulton⁵ [signature]