The Naturalist on the River Amazons | Page 3

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The Naturalist on the River Amazons
by Henry Walter Bates

AN APPRECIATION
BY CHARLES DARWIN Author of "The Origin of Species," etc.
From Natural History Review, vol. iii. 1863.
IN April, 1848, the author of the present volume left England in
company with Mr. A. R. Wallace--"who has since acquired wide fame
in connection with the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection"--on a
joint expedition up the river Amazons, for the purpose of investigating
the Natural History of the vast wood-region traversed by that mighty
river and its numerous tributaries. Mr. Wallace returned to England
after four years' stay, and was, we believe, unlucky enough to lose the
greater part of his collections by the shipwreck of the vessel in which
he had transmitted them to London. Mr. Bates prolonged his residence
in the Amazon valley seven years after Mr. Wallace's departure, and
did not revisit his native country again until 1859. Mr. Bates was also
more fortunate than his companion in bringing his gathered treasures
home to England in safety. So great, indeed, was the mass of specimens
accumulated by Mr. Bates during his eleven years' researches, that
upon the working out of his collection, which has been accomplished
(or is now in course of being accomplished) by different scientific
naturalists in this country, it has been ascertained that representatives of
no less than 14,712 species are amongst them, of which about 8000
were previously unknown to science. It may be remarked that by far the
greater portion of these species, namely, about 14,000, belong to the
class of Insects--to the study of which Mr. Bates principally devoted his
attention--being, as is well known, himself recognised as no mean
authority as regards this class of organic beings. In his present volume,
however, Mr. Bates does not confine himself to his entomological
discoveries, nor to any other branch of Natural History, but supplies a
general outline of his adventures during his journeyings up and down
the mighty river, and a variety of information concerning every object
of interest, whether physical or political, that he met with by the way.
Mr. Bates landed at Para in May, 1848. His first part is entirely taken
up with an account of the Lower Amazons--that is, the river from its

sources up to the city of Manaos or Barra do Rio Negro, where it is
joined by the large northern confluent of that name-- and with a
narrative of his residence at Para and his various excursions in the
neighbourhood of that city. The large collection made by Mr. Bates of
the animal productions of Para enabled him to arrive at the following
conclusions regarding the relations of the Fauna of the south side of the
Amazonian delta with those of other regions.
"It is generally allowed that Guiana and Brazil, to the north and south
of the Para district, form two distinct provinces, as regards their animal
and vegetable inhabitants. By this it means that the