“Did you know that he said all that about the Russula? If we follow his advice what risk do we run of making people ill? We don’t mind so much about ourselves but we must think a little more of our guests. They are rare enough without poisoning any of them.
“Please give us just a little word of advice, anything you find time to say. And please, even if you cannot excuse this liberty and cannot say anything, send me back the newspaper cutting.
“I never intended to say all this when I began and feel quite ashamed when I look back at the length of my letter. Hoping that you will excuse it, believe me with warmest thanks and gratitude,
“Yours faithfully,
“Grace Pope.
“W. Hamilton Gibson, Esq.,
“New York.”
The second letter, a few years before, came from the extreme southwest:
“San Antonio, Texas,
“Jan’y 13th, 1892.
“My dear Mr. Gibson:
“Will you pardon me, an entire stranger, and a Texan writing to you, but I want to tell you how much I have enjoyed and profited by reading your ‘Sharp Eyes.’ A good friend sent it from Denver as a Xmas remembrance and each night I read some portion because it is a never failing delight to read of my many familiar friends in Nature you describe in such a clear and delightful manner. Knowing your time is valuable and you are of human patience, though you have the young lover of Nature at heart, I am tempted to ask you to solve for me a problem that has been not only a mystery for several years but an actual annoyance not to be able to find a satisfactory explanation. It is this. Often in winter time we see flies and mosquitoes swollen almost to bursting attached to panes of glass, their little bodies oftentimes striped like a yellow wasp’s and surrounding them and attached to the glass is a misty deposit of some kind. It is the cause and object of this misty deposit I seek. If you will enlighten me upon this subject by explanation or reference you will add only one more favor to a large number.
“That you have been the means of adding greatly to the pleasure and instruction of the present generation, young and old, I see from my limited field of observation. That you may be spared many years to continue your good work and enjoy the pleasures of God’s Nature in this world and reap a rich reward in the Life hereafter is the earnest wish of