THE

Amazon toucans protest

Henry Walter Bates Henry Bates came to know the rain forest better
Englishman Henry Bales worked as a than any other European. He says in his book.
k but had a keen interest in botany.
i

The Naturalist on the River Amazon, that the forest

[e and Alfred Wallace were inspired
I
is often very quiet and its animals hard to see On

to make their own expedition to South one occasion the peace and quiet were severely
America by the writings of Humboldt and disrupted when he found himself surrounded by
a flock of angry, screeching birds, protesting at his
Darwin. Bates remained in the Amazon
capture of one of them. They were curl-crested
Basin lor 1 1 years and returned to England
toucans, just one of many brilliantly colored birds
in 1 859 only for the sake of his health.
of the forest that Bates saw near the Negro River
He brought back 14,000 specimens, They would have been familiar to local people,
mostly insects, of which about half were but were completely unknown in Europe.
unknown to European scientists.
Bates 1825-1892

Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Wallace, an English
schoolmaster, was two years older
than his friend Bates, with whom he
shared a passion for natural history.
On his expedition to South America,
Wallace took great trouble to collect An experts
live specimens from the Uaupes sketchbooks
Bates recordec
River. He brought them all the way
the insects he found.
to the coast, but lost his entire
He painted the:
collection when his ship caught fire.
perfect detail in his
sketchbcK
Wallace 1823-1913
then numbered and
labeled each one.

Richard Spri c i

Englishman Richard Spruce was a teacher by

profession, but his real lovewas botany Before
going to South America he spent two years
collecting plants in Spain, paying his expenses by
selling his specimens. He sailed to South
4 America on the same ship as Wallace's brother
in 1849 and returned lo England in 1864.
wuh 30.000 plant specimens.

Spruce

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