With regard to work, I am doing but little--I am afraid I have no good
habit of systematic work. I have been gradually getting parts of my
collections in order, but the obscurities of synonymy and descriptions,
the difficulty of examining specimens, and my very limited library, make
it wearisome work.
I have been lately getting the first groups of my butterflies in order,
and they offer some most interesting facts in variation and
distribution--in variation some very puzzling ones. Though I have very
fine series of specimens, I find in many cases I want more; in fact if I
could have afforded to have all my collections kept till my return I
should, I think, have found it necessary to retain twice as many as I
now have.
I am at last making a beginning of a small book on my Eastern journey,
which, if I can persevere, I hope to have ready by next Christmas. I am
a very bad hand at writing anything like narrative. I want something to
argue on, and then I find it much easier to go ahead. I rather despair,
therefore, of making so good a book as Bates's, though I think my
subject is better.
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