WCP842

[1]

[in blue pencil in unknown hand] Wallace

Broadstone, Dorset.

Jan^y. 26th. 1904

Oldfield Thomas Esq.¹

Dear Mr Thomas

My young friend, Fred Birch,² is going out to British Guiana in a few weeks, to collect zoological specimens & study nature generally. Will you be so good as to advise ^{him as to} what he had better collect in your department, & give him a copy of your printed instructions. Also let him know whether he can send them direct to the Museum for you to choose what your require, & whether [2] the Museum will pay him a fixed price for the specimen for such skins & skeletons of small mammals as they may take, or how prices are to be settled. I ask this because we can hear of no trustworthy agent to whom his specimens can be sent.

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