Publisher's Synopsis
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.
