I have been trawling the Web looking for information about bird specimens collected by Wallace in museums outside the UK and came across the interesting news item ("Remembering the forgotten hero of evolution") below.
The only Wallace birds I currently know about in collections outside Britain are: one flycatcher from Malacca in the Raffles Museum for Biodiversity Research in Singapore (see http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg/collections/birds.php); 89 (including types) in the National Museum of Natural History, Leiden, The Netherlands (see http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/document/44313); a few (possibly only one) in the Museum Victoria, Australia (see http://museumvictoria.com.au/Collections-Research/Our-Collections/Science-Collections/Ornithology/ and http://museumvictoria.com.au/history/paradise.html); a few in the South Australian Museum, Adelaide (see http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/page/default.asp?site=1&id=1198&fragPage=1); and one or more in the Field Museum, Chicago. Many other museums (particularly in Europe) probably have Wallace specimens in their collections, since Wallace's agent in London, Samuel Stevens, sold specimens which Wallace and his assistants had collected to private collectors and institutions in several countries. If you know of ANY Wallace specimens (not only birds, but insects etc) in museums outside Britain then please let me know. You can email me by clicking HERE.
Remembering the forgotten hero of evolution
For the tiny creature was collected by the great naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who conceived the theory of evolution by natural selection independently of Charles Darwin.
Wallace was in the middle of an eight-year collecting expedition on the islands off Malaysia when, early in 1858, he wrote to Darwin from his sickbed, enclosing an essay on his theory.
Darwin had come up with the same idea some years before, but it was only when he received Wallace's letter that he realised he must get into print soon.
The first public presentation of the theory of evolution by natural selection, made to the Linnaean Society later that year, presented both men's work, though Darwin's name was listed first. Both were given credit for the revolutionary theory during their lifetimes but, over the years, Darwin's name has persisted while Wallace's has vanished from the public consciousness.
The 150th anniversary of the publication Darwin's book, On The Origin of Species, will this year put Wallace back in the spotlight.
An exhibition opening at Dorset County Museum at Dorchester on Saturday will feature some of the specimens Wallace collected from the Archipelago, which must have helped him come to his conclusions.
Wallace, who was born near Usk, Monmouthshire, had a tremendous breadth of knowledge and interests. He was probably the world's most famous scientist when he retired to Dorset in later life. He was interested in everything from glaciology to land reform, astrobiology and epidemiology, and he was the pre-eminent naturalist of the tropics.
In his 14,000-mile journey round the Malay Archipelago, he collected 110,000 insects, 7,500 shells, 8,050 bird skins and 410 mammal and reptile specimens. Many are in the Natural History Museum in London, but some of his bird specimens are held by Dorset County Museum.
They are usually kept in store, away from the light which would fade their brilliant colours. But a selection of them is to appear in Nature Collected – a touring exhibition which features objects and artefacts from across the South West. It has been produced by Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery in partnership with the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and is supported by Renaissance in the Regions.
The exhibition's curators have trawled the contents of collections across the South West to locate items that help explain how, why and what people collect from nature. They include plants, fossils, minerals, marine creatures, insects and larger species and a first edition copy of On the Origin of Species, which contains a letter written by Darwin.
Among Wallace's specimens included in the exhibition is a beautiful rainbow bee-eater, which Wallace collected in 1856 at Lombock. It has the long sharp bill of a bird adapted to catching insects in the air. The little Timor sunbird, collected on Flores in 1862, has a long, thin, down-curved beak, perfectly adapted for feeding on nectar. What appears to be the original collecting label is still attached to its leg.
Jenny Cripps, curator of Dorset County Museum said most of the birds were males.
"They tend to be much more brightly coloured and so were more likely to be seen," she said.
"The women seem mostly to have got away with it. Everyone is celebrating Darwin this year, and Wallace was doing almost the same sort of work. The public don't really know about him, and we want to say here is a local chap whose ideas helped change our thinking, and who should be much better known."
Wallace's book of his travels, The Malay Archipelago, has never been out of print and was the favourite bedside reading of Joseph Conrad, whose novels chronicled the lives of men under stress in remote outposts of the British Empire. Wallace, who died in 1913 at the age of 91 was also a supporter of socialism and of spiritualism.
While he may have faded from the public spotlight, Wallace is still a hero for academics.
Dr George Beccaloni, an expert on cockroaches at the Natural History Museum, founded the A R Wallace Memorial Fund, which raised funds to restore Wallace's grave in Broadstone cemetery, put up memorial plaques at other relevant locations and helps preserve his memory. For more information visit wallacefund.info
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