| Description: |
Letter from Fred R Birch to A. R. Wallace from Wavertree, Liverpool, 16 Nov 1899; 5 sewn folios (20 pp) thanking A. R. Wallace for past help and reporting on his own life and thoughts over the past year including a camping trip in Llanferris, flora and fauna near River Alyn, geology of local rivers, collecting moths and mosses; cycling in Pennine hills; visit from Harold Sayler; winter clothing and exercise; L S Mosley's Economic Museum in Huddersfield, Mosley's involvement with Naturalist's Journal; camping and collecting insects in Delamere Forest Cheshire, names of some beetles and moths collected; trips along Welsh rivers; reading on ethnology and the tropics in anticipation of going there, lists authors including Humboldt, Bell, H H Higgins, Ernst Haeckel and Huxley, praises Mary Kingsley; praises practical learning and self-sufficiency; desire to learn, frustration of work restricting time available; a friend at Ladysmith, (Boer) war; secretaryship of Lancs and Cheshire entomological Society; photography of natural objects. Stamped envelope addressed to A. R. Wallace at Parkstone, postmarked on front Wavertree Liverpool 21 Nov 1899 with an illegible postmark on the back; annotated in A. R. Wallace's? WGW's? hand "Fred. Birch | Interesting letter - thoughts &c &c." Place: Liverpool Parkstone Dorset England Wales Notes: Second Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902. |
