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Collecting
- Butterfly specimens showing Batesian mimicry
- Butterfly specimens showing sexual dimorphism
- Specimens of birdwing butterflies (Papilionidae)
- Specimens of Asian beetles
- Specimens of bugs, crickets and other insects
- Specimens of stick and leaf insects, and a stag-horned deer-fly and other insects
- Specimen pieces of bird and marsupial skin
- Specimens of dead leaf butterflies and Trogonoptera brookiana
- Collecting and sending insects to Bates
- Collecting insects in Wales
- Designing an insect cabinet
- Exchanging insect lists with Bates and keeping a journal
- Herbert Wallace collecting in Brazil
- Fish drawing from the Rio Negro - Curimata species
- Descriptions of fishes from the Upper Rio Negro - Curimata species
- Fish drawing from the Upper Rio Negro - Ageneiosus species
- Descriptions of fishes from the Rio Negro - Ageneiosus species
- Wallace is shipwrecked and loses his collections
- The start of Wallace's Malay Archipelago expedition
- Collecting insects in Singapore
- Collecting insects in Malacca and Mount Ophir
- Qualities of a good field assistant and hand-rearing an orang-utan
- Collecting in Borneo and the departure of his assistant
- The insect life of the Malay Archipelago
- Notes on birds in Macassar
- List of expedition food supplies
- Insects and their colouring
- Wallace on biogeography
- Payment to Wallace by the British Museum
- Problems with the British Museum paying Wallace
- Insect list from the Malay Archipelago
- The Malay Archipelago book - map and dedication
- Photograph of Fred Birch
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The Malay Archipelago book - map and dedication
Catalogue number: L-ARW-47
The Malay Archipelago dedication to Darwin and a map showing Wallace's journey, dated 1869.
Image showing an extract from this item
Wallace first published his science and travel book, The Malay Archipelago: the land of the Orang-utan, and the Bird of Paradise; A narrative of Travel, with Studies of Man and Nature, in 1869. He dedicated the book to Charles Darwin 'not only as a token of personal esteem and friendship but also to express my deep admiration for his genius and his works'. This really sums up Wallace's attitude towards Darwin. They corresponded for many years and shared comments on each other's work.
Image showing an extract from this item
The book itself was written six years after his return from the Malay Archipelago region (including Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia). Wallace describes the book in the preface as 'an interesting and instructive sketch of the main results arrived at by the study of my collections'. He collected a total of 125,660 specimens, 83,200 of which were Coleoptera (beetles).
Wallace's 14,000-mile (22,530 km) journey around the region can be seen on the foldout map included in the book, entitled 'Southern Part of the Malay Archipelago shewing Mr. Wallace's routes'. Places where Wallace explored included Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea and many smaller islands such as the group called the Molucca Islands, where Wallace famously spent time at Jilolo (Gilolo, now called Halmahera) and Ternate.
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