Alderley Grange. June 21.
My dear young Lion. Thank you for your letter. We had a very nice stay at Capt: Leader Symonds who has a lovely old house with the remains of a moat around it, & heaps of birds all about it, Peacocks, Guineafowl, Pigeons, Pheasants, (in cages) etc: the country is agricultural, quite unlike the Camp, the field enormously large, & farming is every one 's pursuit. We had a very long journey to get there. The train from Sunningdale to Reading arrived an hour after its time, & though we should have had 40" to wait at Reading we found the train for Chester had started a few minutes before our arrival. So we went to Didcot & slept at The Railway Hotel there, for only one train went on to Chester, & that so very late at night that Mama did not like to keep Dicky up, especially as Hinton is 6 miles from Chester, & we did not think that they would send the carriage to meet us on the chance of our coming so late. On Thursday we came on here & had about 40! to wait at Gloucester. If you had been there we could have gone & seen the Cathedral again. Do you remember being at Alderly with me when you were a very little boy? I still remember it & you collecting the mosses on an old wall & thinking them so pretty. -it reminded me that I did the same when I was a little boy of perhaps your age.-at any rate I wore petticoats. Of course I do not mean that I remember doing it, but my mother said I did.

The country here is lovely. I see no new butterflies but I did a very small Bombus, but could not catch it for you. If I see another I will try again. Have you caught any new Bombi ? "Habessi novos Bombos " Hic i posto vidi specion parvan quam libi ignotares sits—You may put out the quam &-sit. Dicky is supremely happy, I told him at Hinton that walnut leaves keep off flies, so when he was on the box with the Hodgson's coachman yesterday, he told him that he should hang walnut leaves about the horse's heads when the flies were very troublesome. Mama & Mr & Mrs Hodgson & Dickey send their love to you & with kind regards to Mr Metcalfe & love to Granny & Hugh Ever dear young Lion Your affectionate father (signed) J.D.Hooker. Thanks for the Cerydalis, please bring some roots when you come home & don't forget. I am glad that you are learning some names of plants