The Species Seekers Quiz: Wallace's House of Rest

After spending a dozen years in the tropics and making his reputation as the greatest field biologist of the nineteenth century, Alfred Russel Wallace later gave this name to a house he built:

1.  Darwinia, to honor his co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection (though his wife Annie had suggested Wallacea).

2.  Umbraculum, from the Latin word for a place of quiet retirement.

3.  Tulgey Wood, after a nonsense verse by Lewis Carroll.

4.  Birdwing, for his discovery of the spectacular Wallace's golden birdwing butterfly.

And the answer is:[image error]

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The worlds of species seeking and nonsense verse were surprisingly interconnected (you can read about it in The Species Seekers, Chapter 13, "A Fool to Nature" ).   Wallace was so enamored of Lewis Carroll's work that, late in life, with his travels to the Amazon and the East Indies far behind him, he named a house he built Tulgey Wood, after the haunt of the jujub bird and the frumious bandersnatch in "Jabberwocky":

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

Here's a picture of the house at  149 Lower Blandford Road, Broadstone, Dorset, and here's the Google map. Wallace built Tulgey Wood  in 1908 as a place for his wife to live after his death, because their home, the Old Orchard, would have been too big for her.  Their daughter Violet lived in Tulgey Wood, and Wallace's wife moved in after his death.

And finally, click here to see more of the  creatures in jubjub artist David Elliot's excellent menagerie.

Note:  This item was originally published in different form.  It now incorporates corrections kindly provided by Dr. George Beccaloni