SpM, amazing stuff. The best explanation of an 'inside-joke' with the finding of the Entwives has been a connection between of course none other than C.S. Lewis. It seems to be a rather far-fetched one, but yet has been the best possible explanation I've come acrossed...
In Carpenter's biography, in Chapter 4 'Oxford' he talks about a play Tolkien wrote 'The Bloodhound, the Chef, and the Suffragette.' Which the connection is that it seems rather similar to Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (written almost 40 years later). Tolkien also played the leading role in the play...Professor Quilter (The bloodhound who's alias was Detective Sexton Q. Blake-Holmes). And he searched for the lost hieress Gwendoline Goodchild.
You, and others, have also mentioned the reference to 'dryads.' In Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, the woods are filled with dryads. Perhaps that's the connection between TTT and Lewis' book, leading back to the play Tolkien wrote...seems rather weak. That's the best explanation I've come across, and it definitely seems a little far-fetched.
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Fenris Penguin
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