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 [pg 116] their long tails up and down when they alight on the ground or on a branch. Other birds with long tails jerk them up in the air when they alight on a branch. Now these varied motions, like the motions of many butterflies, caterpillars, and many other animals, must have a use to the animal, and the most common, or rather the most probable, use is, either to frighten or to distract an enemy. If a hawk was very hungry and darted down on a wagtail from up in the air, the wagging tail would be seen most distinctly and be aimed at, and thus the bird would be missed or at most a feather torn out of the tail. The bird hunts for food in the open, on the edges of ponds and streams, and would be especially easy to capture, hence the wagging tail has been developed to baffle the enemy....
TO Miss VIOLET WALLACE
Parkstone, Dorset. March 8, 1899.
My dear Violet,— ... I have now finished reading the "Maha Bharata," which is on the whole very fine—finer, I think, than the "Iliad." I have read a good deal of it twice, and it will bear reading many times. It corresponds pretty nearly in date with the "Iliad," the scenes it describes being supposed to be about B.C. 1500. Many of the ideas and moral teachings are beautiful; equal to the best teaching and superior to the general practice of to-day. I have made a lot of emendations and suggestions, which I am going to send to the translator, as the proofs have evidently not been carefully read by any English literary man.
About the year 1899 Dr. Wallace began to think of leaving Parkstone, partly for reasons of health and partly to get a larger garden, if possible. He spent three years in looking for a suitable spot in many of the southern counties, and we were all pressed to join in the search. Finally he found just the spot he wanted at Broadstone; only three miles away. [pg 117] The following letters describe his final success—all written with his usual optimism and high spirits:
TO MR. W.G. WALLACE
Parkstone, Dorset. October 26, 1901.