specimens and after his Brazil experience he took the precaution of sending them in
different boats sailing for England. Wallace himself sailed from Singapore in 1862
with two prized possessions in his luggage. He had acquired two lesser birds of
paradise. These beauties of the natural world would be dazzling testimony to his years
spent in the archipelago and his voyages to its most eastern extremities in Maluku and
Papua. They would be the first live birds of paradise to reach England in many years
and he nurtured them with great care on the voyage:
On my way home I stayed a week at Bombay, to break the journey, and to lay in a fresh
stock of bananas for my birds. I had great difficulty, however, in supplying them with insect
food, for in the Peninsular and Orient steamers cockroaches were scarce, and it was only
by setting traps in the store-rooms, and by hunting every night in the forecastle, that I could
secure a few dozen of these creatures – scarcely enough for a single meal.His arrival back in England was anticipated by The Times, which reported that after
an eight-year absence, Mr A.R. Wallace, the well-known traveller and naturalist was
returning to London with his two live birds of paradise:
The Zoological Society of London are daily expecting a new and brilliant addition to their
collection ... But one previous instance is known of a Paradise Bird having been brought
alive to Europe. This individual was the property of the late Princess Augusta, and died at
Windsor about forty years ago.Back in London, Wallace found himself surrounded by packing cases containing
all the specimens he had sent home for his private collection. The most important
specimens needed to be described and some of the more interesting problems of
variation and geographical distribution be studied:
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 a thousand species,
and 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 weak state of health, the unpacking, sorting, and arranging of such a
mass of specimens occupied a long time.After he recovered his health Wallace accepted Darwin’s invitation to visit him atAlfred Russel Wallace – The Return to England 185