126 LETTERS TO MR. BAILEY [CHAP. xiv. 



Traders Associations at the Royal Lancashire Show are 

 distributing thousands of my Warble leaflets, with free leave 

 to write up to London for more. 



March 2, 1900. 



Many thanks to you for your very kind letter. Indeed it 

 is a trouble to me that I am not able to write oftener, but 

 nobody knows better than yourself (who are so burdened 

 with work for the good of others) how hard work can be, 

 and if I quite overwork I am ill, so I am afraid to do all I 

 wish. 



Thank you for your kind congratulations. I take it as a 

 very great honour for the University of Edinburgh to give 

 me a Doctor of Laws Degree, &c., &c., &c. I am a little 

 anxious about making such a very public appearance, but I 

 dare say it will not be so alarming when it comes to the 

 point. But I do not wish to go out of my own quiet 

 lines, and I do not certainly wish to be called " Doctor." 

 Would not the right thing be for me to just put LL.D. after 

 my name where desirable ? 



TORRINGTON HOUSE, ST. AbBANS, 



April 26, 1901. 



MY DEAR MR. BAILEY, I have postponed replying to 

 your kind letter partly because I have had a long exhausting 

 illness, and partly because I am sure that you will regret 

 the subject of my letter, as I do myself. Still I think I 

 ought to tell you that I am purposing quite to discontinue 

 my regular entomological work. You would notice what 

 I said about the Annual Reports, but the attention to 

 insect inquiries and (almost worse) the requests for co- 

 operation in philanthropic literary schemes had become a 

 burthen so very injurious to me that I was warned both by 

 my doctor and literary colleagues that without rest the con- 

 sequences might be very serious. All last year my health 

 was failing, and (though this is temporary) an attack of 

 influenza early in March, followed by what are called 

 " effects," has caused me great suffering. 



But it is in reference to our long, kindly colleagueship 

 that I am writing to you. Natural history is on a very 

 different footing now from what it was in 1884, when with 

 your good help our good lads started the investigations 

 regarding Warble, which have proved to the whole world 

 the possibility of checking this wasteful attack, and I may 

 add they have carried the work on with their own steady, 

 patient, long-continued energy. To this I must add my 

 great appreciation of their useful work in real serviceable 



