My dear Sir

I take the liberty of sending you a copy of a paper on Ophrys insectifera, translated into German by Prof. H. G. Reichenbach, in which I have attempted to shew the principal forms which link together Aranifera & Apifera, & to classify these forms.¹

This paper was originally written six years ago & rewritten in 1868; but, owing to “unavoidable delays”, it has only just reached me in print. Of course I should have liked to have revised & added to this notice; for, during the five years that have elapsed since the rewriting, I have accumulated a great quantity of notes bearing on the variation of Ophrys insectifera, & especially on the annual reproduction of individual forms or deviation from these forms.—

However, it would be most ungracious on my part to utter anything like a complaint; on the contrary, I am very sensible of the liberal conduct which this German Academy have shewn towards me in publishing, free of all expense, an expensively illustrated paper written by a foreigner & a stranger.²

I have lately received a present of a living trap-door spider in her nest, brought over by an American gentleman!—

She appears to be in perfectly good case, & often vigorously resists any attempt on my part to open the door of her nest, clinging on to it & dragging it down in precisely the same way that Nemesia caementaria does at Mentone.³

How interesting & how suggestive these facts of correspondence in habit are—

Here we have a spider from the further side of America, which constructs a nest of the ‘cork’ type; & which resists intrusion in precisely the same way as do the cork-nest-spiders of Europe!⁴

I should greatly like to collect a number of facts such as these, & to learn more of the geographical distribution of habit in animals—⁵

Believe me | y^rs. very sincerely | J. Traherne Moggridge.