19 Great Stuart Street
Edinburgh
Friday March 9th <1>
My dear Miss Craig <2>
I am very much obliged to you for informing me of the very curious plant the orange-lemon tree at Cannes - I will certainly endeavour to obtain permission to see it and the other garden which you mention as curious. You know of course the Laburnum which bears 3 kinds of flowers, but that is the only example I know of two plants in one.
Mrs Talbot <3> will send you a woodcut which I met with lately representing the Procession of Caterpillars which you observed at Cannes - It seems that is really its scientific name Bombyx (or Phalæna) processionea. It has therefore lately attracted the attention of the French Naturalists -
Yours very truly
H. F. Talbot
Notes:
1. This is WHFT's reply to Doc. No: 09071.
2. Miss Gibson-Craig may have met the Talbots through photographic connections. In the 1856 Photographic Society of Scotland exhibition in Edinburgh, she exhibited two portraits by a photographer by the name of Wagner.
3. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811-1880), WHFT's wife.