NATURALIST IN THE AMAZON

Pages from the writings and journals of Henry Walter Bates from his illustrated notebooks and excerpts, this is in the words of Charles Darwin 'the best book of natural history travels ever published'. Published by The Natural History Museum, this charming and beautifully produced large book revolves around the two journals Bates produced during his groundbreaking travels in the Amazon, and his classic work 'The Naturalist on the River Amazons'. Alongside specially selected excerpts are facsimile reproductions from his journals demonstrating his talents as an artist as well as a scientist. Bates was a trusted companion of Alfred Russel Wallace, and travelled with him to the Amazon in 1848. There he became fascinated by close similarities in the appearance between unrelated butterflies. He found that so-called tasty species, those that are sought after by predators, had evolved to look like toxic species to escape being attacked. This idea became known as Batesian mimicry. Bates spent a total of 11 years in the Amazon, exploring largely unvisited major rivers and their tributaries in the world's largest area of tropical rain forest in South America. By the time he returned to England in 1859, still only 34 years old, Bates had collected by his own estimate some 712 species of mammals, reptiles, birds, fishes and molluscs, and about 14,000 species of insects, of which no less than 8,000 were previously unknown. The journals ran to hundreds of pages reproduced here at actual size and taken from the original two-volume edition published by John Murray with subheadings representing the beginning of a new excerpt. From Pará to Obydos, Santarén to Ega. 160pp, 23.5 x 18cm. Colour.