From the desk of Meredith Finkley Snit-Bottomly

My darlings,

I trust this finds you both well in the extreme. I am forwarding this to you care of Sir Terry at the Lo Horongo Gorongo and hope it will find you wherever it is that you have most recently wandered.

Enclosed are what I have managed to decipher from the rubbings received from Watford, though I had a deuced difficult time with the third line, smeared as it was with some viscous liquid that obscured an already obscure script!

Terribly intrigued by the implications of the stone... rather tempted to catch up with you at some point to discuss in person. Any chance of an appearance at the Chapter's Yule celebration? Much hilarity is promised with Sudsy revealing her most recent findings regarding the mating habits of Ursidae Helarctos malayanus, while Clarinda Finch-Newtley has promised to share her most recent etchings recounting her time among the algerines!

I am coincidentally in London at the time (blasted British Museum is insisting that I spend some time there 'earning my keep' – by which they mean rubbing shoulders with halitosis-prone geriatrics and flashing bosom at the large bank accounts while regaling them with anecdotes about my latest adventures among the bones). It would be smashing to see you and compare notes on recent findings and acquisitions.

Watford, I enclose a pressing of a delightful Nymphalis antiopa recently encountered during my tour across American north. You will notice that the customary blue markings along the wing tips are instead the most astonishing shade of puce! I would be most appreciative of any thoughts you may have in this area – an anomaly or an entirely new sub-species??

I trust that you will convey my fondest regards to your dashing cousin Wilbur and when next you speak do let him know that I am utterly exfluncticated on hearing of his repeated dalliance last year with that atrocious Prunella Fitz-Hump-Humphrey. Honestly, the woman looks like a Pekinese!

Trusting that our paths will cross afore too long.

In darkness and in light,
your friend Merry