* * * * *
TO MR. W.G. WALLACE
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. February 23, 1909._
My dear Will,-- ... In my last letter I did not say anything about my
morning at the Nat. Hist. Museum.... What I enjoyed most was seeing some
splendid New Guinea butterflies which Mr. Rothschild[46] and his
curator, Mr. Jordan, brought up from Tring on purpose to show me. I
could hardly have imagined anything so splendid as some of these. I also
saw some of the new paradise birds in the British Museum. But Mr.
Rothschild says they have five times as many at Tring, and much finer
specimens, and he invited me to spend a week-end at Tring and see the
Museum. So I may go, perhaps--in the summer.
But I have a curious thing to tell you about insect collecting at "Old
Orchard." About five months back I was examining one of the clumps of an
orchid in the glass case--which had been sent me from Buenos Ayres by
Mr. John Hall--when three pretty little beetles dropped out of it, on
the edge of the tank, and I only managed to catch two of them. They were
pretty little Longicornes, about an inch long, but very slender and
graceful, though only of a yellowish-brown colour. I sent them up to the
British Museum asking the name, and telling them they could keep them if
of any use. They told me they were a species of the large South American
genus Ibidion, but they had not got it in the collection!
On the Sunday before Christmas Day I was taking my evening inspection
of the orchids, etc.
Pages:
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166