WCP657

[1]

9, St. Mark’s Crescent,

Regent’s Park. N.W.

Oct^r 14th. 1869

Dear Sir,

I have now just received the Plate of Heterocera which you have been so good as to send me. They are exceedingly interesting and beautifully executed, and it is a great benefit you confer on science by publishing so many good figures.

Mr Saunders¹ had the whole of my complete series of Heterocera and I cannot think I could have sent you any not in his collection.

I send you herewith a photograph of Darwin², the last taken though not a very good one. You will greatly [2] oblige me by obtaining for me a set of D^r Herrich-Schaeffer’s³ papers.

I still hold my opinions that the Papilionidae are the most highly developed of the Lepidoptera and should stand at the head of the order, not withstanding the ingenious arguments of Mr. Bates⁴ and Mr. Trimen⁵. I admit they have retained some of the characters of the Hesperidae and the Heterocera, but they are characters which make them more perfectly organized than the groups which are proposed to be placed above them.

The case is exactly parallel to that of the Quadrumana and the Solidungula⁶ among mammals. Mammals as compared with birds are terrestrial, horses are more terrestrial than monkeys, therefore horses are the highest group; — might be [3] argued on exactly the same grounds.

I also think when a particular order or series of families has been generally adopted it is inconvenient to change that series in toto, without some positive advantages which are universally admitted, and I certainly can see no such advantages in this case.

On the other side I send a sketch of what appear to me to be the relations of the chief families of butterflies, and I think the old order of arrangement as good as any, — shown by the numbers.

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

Rudolf Felder Esq.

[4] [Sketch of relations of the Heterocera with the following labels and groupings: "Danaidae 3, Acraeidae 4, Satyridae 6, Nymphalidae 5" "Papilionidae 1, Pieridae 2" "Erycinidae 7" "Lycaenidae 8" "Hesperidae 9" "Heterocera"]