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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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Insect list from the Malay Archipelago
Catalogue number: WP1/3/72
Annotated list by Wallace, sent to his entomologist friend Henry Walter Bates with details of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera, dated January 1858.
This annotated list was probably part of a letter sent to Henry Walter Bates. Wallace presents a table of the places he visited in the Eastern Malay Archipelago, the time spent there and a list of Coleoptera (beetle) species collected. He also wrote a list of the Lepidoptera (butterflies).
Wallace announced to Bates, 'I surpass you considerably in the number of species...' and wondered whether this meant there were really fewer insect species in South America (where Bates was collecting) or whether Bates had just focused on collecting the more interesting butterflies, ignoring smaller insects. He suggested Bates should spend a month searching exclusively for Hymenoptera (bees and ants) and Diptera (flies) to settle the matter. Wallace often exchanged insect lists with Bates, as he too was a keen entomologist (someone who studies insects).
There was a little competition between Wallace and Bates, but purely from an eagerness to share their interest. Wallace was keen to give Bates advice to gather information and draw conclusions about the geographical distribution of animals, an area of study that Wallace pioneered.
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Wallace Letters Online
View high resolution scans and transcripts of Alfred Russel Wallace's correspondence, including all surviving letters between him and Charles Darwin.