The Naturalist On The River Amazons - Approach

Approach

In 1847, Bates and his friend Alfred Russel Wallace, both in their early twenties, agreed that they would jointly make a collecting trip to the Amazon "towards solving the problem of origin of species". They had been inspired by reading the American entomologist William Henry Edwards's pioneering 1847 book A Voyage Up the River Amazon, with a residency at Pará.

Neither had much money, so they determined to fund themselves by collecting and selling fine specimens of birds and insects. Both made extensive travels — in different parts of the Amazon basin — creating large natural history collections, especially of insects. Wallace sailed back to England in 1852 after four years; on the voyage, his ship caught fire, and his collection was destroyed; undeterred, he set out again, leading eventually (1869) to a comparable book, The Malay Archipelago. Bates collected over 14,000 species, of which 8,000 were new to science. His observations of the coloration of butterflies led him to describe what is now called Batesian mimicry, where an edible species protects itself by appearing like a distasteful species. Bates's account of his stay, including observations of nature and the people around him, occupies his book.

In the abridged version, there is a balance between descriptions of places and adventures, and the wildlife seen there. The style is accurate, but vivid and direct:

The house lizards belong to a peculiar family, the Geckos, and are found even in the best-kept chambers, most frequently on the walls and ceilings, to which they cling motionless by day, being active only at night. They are of speckled grey or ashy colours. The structure of their feet is beautifully adapted for clinging to and running over smooth surfaces; the underside of their toes being expanded into cushions, beneath which folds of skin form a series of flexible plates. By means of this apparatus they can walk or run across a smooth ceiling with their backs downwards ; the plated soles, by quick muscular action, exhausting and admitting air alternately. The Geckos are very repulsive in appearance. —Bates, chapter 1.

The book begins and ends suddenly. The journey out, as reviewer Joseph James observes, is dismissed in a few words. The last few lines of the book run:

On the 6th of June, when in 7° 55' N. lat. and 52° 30' W. long., and therefore about 400 miles from the mouth of the main Amazons, we passed numerous patches of floating grass mingled with tree-trunks and withered foliage. Amongst these masses I espied many fruits of that peculiarly Amazonian tree the Ubussu palm; this was the last I saw of the Great River. —Bates