Home Life 



To His Wife 

 H6td du Olacier du Rhdne. Wednesday eveniiig, [July, 1895]. 



My dear Annie, — I send you now a box of plants I got 

 on both sides of the Furka Pass yesterday, and about here 

 to-day. The Furka Pass on both sides is a perfect flower- 

 garden, and the two sides have mostly different species. 

 The violets and anemones were lovely, and I have got two 

 species of glorious gentians. . . . All the flowers in the box 

 are very choice species, and have been carefully dug up, and 

 having seen how they grow, I have been thinking of a plan 

 of making a little bed for them on the top of the new rockery 

 where there is now nothing particular. Will you please plant 

 them out carefully in the zinc tray of peat and sphagnum that 

 stands outside near the little greenhouse door ? Just lift up 

 the sphagnum and see if the earth beneath is moist, if not 

 give it a soaking. Then put them all in, the short-rooted 

 ones in the sphagnum only, the others through into the peat. 

 Then give them a good syringing and put the tray under 

 the shelf outside the greenhouse, and cover with newspaper 

 for a day or two. After that I think they will do, keeping 

 them moist if the weather is dry. I am getting hosts of 

 curiosities. To-day we found four or five species of willows 

 from y^ in. to 2 in. high, and other rarities. ... In haste 

 for post and dinner. — Your ever affectionate 



Alfred R. Wallace. 



To Miss Violet Wallace 



Parkstone, Dorset. October 22, 1897. 



My dear Violet, — In your previous letter you asked me 

 the conundrum. Why does a wagtail wag its tail ? That's 

 quite easy, on Darwinian principles. Many birds wag their 

 tails. Some Eastern flycatchers — also black and white — wag 



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