hurch last summer, and went for many drives with the
Emperor only, all about the country.... Col. Legge got here at 2.40, and
had to leave at 3.20 (at station), so we got a carriage from Wimborne to
meet the train and take him back, and Ma gave him some tea, and he said
he had got a nice little place at Stoke Poges but with no view like
ours, and he showed me how to wear the Order and was very pleasant: and
we were all pleased....

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. 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., in the glass case when a largish insect flew by my
face, and when it settled it looked like a handsome moth or butterfly.
It was brilliant orange on the lower wings, the upper being shaded
orange brown,