Home Life 



The next letter refers to the discovery of a rare moth 

 and some beetles in the root of an orchid. It was certainly 

 a strange yet pleasant coincidence that these creatures 

 should find themselves in Dr. Wallace's greenhouse, where 

 alone they would be noticed and appreciated as something 

 uncommon. 



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. Kothschild' 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. Eothschild 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 



^ The present Lord Rothschild. 

 ^ 129 



