WCP6883

[1]¹

My dear Cockerell

Thanks for your PC. Single cases of inedible insects being eaten prove nothing. Quails are not insect-eaters as a rule: therefore insects are not protected against them specially. Unless it can be proved that regular insect-eating birds that abound in the same locality eat the conspicuous as readily & frequently as they do the inconspicuous insects the theory of warning colours is untouched. No rule is absolute in "Nature". The discussion in "Nature" & at the Linnean was all beside the question discussed directly in my paper, wh. I hope to have soon & will send you a copy. Nobody said a word on my [illeg.] argument. Henslow has a paper next week to prove! that in plants Nat. Select. is not the cause of origin of sp. & has nothing whatever to do with it!!!

Yours truly | A.R.Wallace [signature] [2]

Prof. Th. D. A. Cockerell

Mesilla

New Mexico

U. S. A.