The sombre shade, scarcely illuminated by a single direct ray even of the tropical sun, the
enormous size and height of the trees, most of which rise like huge columns a hundred
feet or more without throwing out a single branch, the strange buttresses around the base
of some ... It is here that the rarest birds, the most lovely insects, and the most interesting
mammals and reptiles are to be found.Wallace and Bates settled into a routine of getting up before dawn to spend the early
hours hunting for birds, then from mid-morning it was time for collecting butterflies
and insects as they were most active just before the heat of the day. Then it was back
to their residence for lunch and a siesta. In the late afternoon they prepared their
specimens, wrote up their notes and discussed their plans for the next day. Within a
short time they found many distinct kinds of butterflies and Wallace describes some
of their successes:
We found very few insects, but almost all that we found were new to us. Our greatest
treasure was the beautiful clear-winged butterfly with a bright violet patch on its lower
wings, the Hoetera esmeralda, which we now saw and caught for the first time. Many other
rare insects were also obtained, and the gigantic blue Morphos frequently passed us, but
their undulating flight baffled all our efforts at capturing them.After three months in Belém do Pará they sent their first shipment back to London.
Fortunately, the specimens arrived in excellent condition as they had followed the
advice received from the contacts they had made in London. Samuel Stevens, placed
the following advertisement in the journal Annals and Magazine of Natural History:
SAMUEL STEVENS, NATURAL HISTORY AGENT, NO. 24 BLOOMSBURY STREET,
BEDFORD SQUARE, begs to announce that he has recently received from South America
Two beautiful Consignments of INSECTS of all orders in very fine Condition, collected in
the province of Pará, containing numbers of very rare and some new species ... For Sale by
Private Contract.Wallace’s younger brother Herbert had started various apprenticeships after leaving
school but had little success in finding employment. In fact he dreamt of becoming a
poet. Wallace suggested he join them in Brazil and arranged for Samuel Stevens to pay
his passage. After Herbert arrived in Belém do Pará in July 1849 the group travelled
900 kilometres up the Amazon in one of the vessels that regularly plied the great river.
Day after day they observed the jungle growing right down to the river banks, a living
108 Where Australia Collides with Asia
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