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The Malay Archipelago, the land of the orang-utan and the bird of paradise By: Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) |
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By Alfred Russel Wallace
The land of the orang utan, and the bird of paradise. A narrative of travel, with sketches of man and nature.
To CHARLES DARWIN, AUTHOR OF "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES," I dedicate this book,
Not only as a token of personal esteem and friendship
But also
To express my deep admiration
For
His genius and his works.
Contents PREFACE. THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
CHAPTER II. SINGAPORE.
CHAPTER III. MALACCA AND MOUNT OPHIR.
CHAPTER IV. BORNEO THE ORANGUTAN.
CHAPTER V. BORNEO JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR.
CHAPTER VI. BORNEO THE DYAKS.
CHAPTER VII. JAVA.
CHAPTER VIII. SUMATRA.
CHAPTER IX. NATURAL HISTORY OF THE INDO MALAY ISLANDS.
CHAPTER X. BALI AND LOMBOCK.
CHAPTER XI. LOMBOCK: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER XII. LOMBOCK: HOW THE RAJAH TOOK THE CENSUS.
CHAPTER XIII. TIMOR.
CHAPTER XIV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TIMOR GROUP.
CHAPTER XV. CELEBES.
CHAPTER XVI. CELEBES.
CHAPTER XVII. CELEBES.
CHAPTER XVIII. NATURAL HISTORY OF CELEBES.
CHAPTER XIX. BANDA.
CHAPTER XX. AMBOYNA.
PREFACE. My readers will naturally ask why I have delayed writing this book
for six years after my return; and I feel bound to give them full
satisfaction on this point. When I reached England in the spring of 1862, I found myself surrounded
by a room full of packing cases containing the collections that I had,
from time to time, sent home for my private use. These comprised nearly
three thousand bird skins of about one thousand species, at least twenty
thousand beetles and butterflies of about seven thousand species, and
some quadrupeds and land shells besides. A large proportion of these
I had not seen for years, and in my then weakened state of health, the
unpacking, sorting, and arranging of such a mass of specimens occupied a
long time. I very soon decided that until I had done something towards naming and
describing the most important groups in my collection, and had worked
out some of the more interesting problems of variation and geographical
distribution (of which I had had glimpses while collecting them), I
would not attempt to publish my travels. Indeed, I could have printed
my notes and journals at once, leaving all reference to questions of
natural history for a future work; but, I felt that this would be as
unsatisfactory to myself as it would be disappointing to my friends, and
uninstructive to the public. Since my return, up to this date, I have published eighteen papers
in the "Transactions" or "Proceedings of the Linnean Zoological and
Entomological Societies", describing or cataloguing portions of my
collections, along with twelve others in various scientific periodicals
on more general subjects connected with them. Nearly two thousand of my Coleoptera, and many hundreds of my
butterflies, have been already described by various eminent naturalists,
British and foreign; but a much larger number remains undescribed. Among
those to whom science is most indebted for this laborious work, I must
name Mr. F. P. Pascoe, late President of the Entomological Society of
London, who had almost completed the classification and description
of my large collection of Longicorn beetles (now in his possession),
comprising more than a thousand species, of which at least nine hundred
were previously undescribed and new to European cabinets. The remaining orders of insects, comprising probably more than two
thousand species, are in the collection of Mr. William Wilson Saunders,
who has caused the larger portion of them to be described by good
entomologists. The Hymenoptera alone amounted to more than nine hundred
species, among which were two hundred and eighty different kinds of
ants, of which two hundred were new. The six years' delay in publishing my travels thus enables me to give
what I hope may be an interesting and instructive sketch of the main
results yet arrived at by the study of my collections; and as the
countries I have to describe are not much visited or written about, and
their social and physical conditions are not liable to rapid change, I
believe and hope that my readers will gain much more than they will
lose by not having read my book six years ago, and by this time perhaps
forgotten all about it... Continue reading book >>
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