Home Life 



The Eev. O. Pickard- Cambridge has kindly written his 

 reminiscence of another very curious coincidence connected 

 with a natural history object. 



" Some years ago, on looking over some insect drawers in 

 my collection, Mr. A. R. Wallace exclaimed, ' Why, there 

 is my old Sarawak spider ! ' ' Well ! that is curious,' I 

 replied, ' because that spider has caused me much trouble 

 and thought as to who might have caught it, and where ; I 

 had only lately decided to describe and figure it, even though 

 I could give the name of neither locality nor finder, being, as 

 it seemed to me, of a genus and species not as yet recorded ; 

 also I had, as you see, provisionally conferred your name 

 upon it, although I had not the remotest idea that it had 

 anything else to do with you.' ' Well,' said Mr. Wallace, 

 ' if it is my old spider it ought to have my own private ticket 

 on the pin underneath.' * It has a ticket,' I replied, ' but 

 it is unintelligible to me ; the spider came to me among some 

 other items by purchase at the sale of Mr. Wilson Saunders' 

 collections.' ' If it is mine,' said Wallace (examining it), 

 * the ticket should be so-and-so. And it is ! I caught this 

 spider at Sarawak, and specially noted its remarkable form. 

 I remember it as if it were yesterday, and now I find it here, 

 and you about to publish it as a new genus and species to 

 which, in total ignorance of whence it came or who caught 

 it, you have given my name ! ' Thus it stands, and ' Friula 

 Wallaciij Camb. (family Gasteracanthidfe) , taken by Alfred 

 Russel Wallace at Sarawak,' is the (unique as I believe) type 

 specimen, in my collection." — O. P.-C. 



Dr. Wallace was very fond of reading good novels, and 

 usually spent an hour or two, before retiring to bed, with 

 what he called a " good domestic story." One of his 

 favourite authors was ISfarion Crawford. Poetry appealed 

 to him very strongly, and he had a good memory for his 

 favourite verses, especially for those he had learned in 

 his youth. Amongst his books were over fifty volumes of 

 poetry. 



He liked to see friends or interesting visitors, but he was 



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