Revision of Wallace's specimens from Sun, 2013-09-22 16:19

By George Beccaloni

Skin of orangutan in the World Museum, Liverpool. Copyright Fred Edwards & World Museum, LiverpoolI am often asked about Wallace's specimens, not only those in the Natural History Museum, London, where I work, but also those in other institutions. I have therefore decided to produce a brief overview of his surviving collections - where the specimens now are, plus an indication of what material is present. Anyone who knows anything about Wallace's collections will realise that they are highly dispersed across dozens of institutions worldwide, so they will appreciate what a big job it is going to be to compile a moderately comprehensive list. So please be aware that the list below is far from complete and will remain so for some time! If you spot anything that is missing then please email me at blaberus1@ntlworld.com

INTRODUCTION

Wallace started to collect natural history specimens in 1841 whilst he was living near Neath in Wales. He wanted to be able to identify the plants he saw in the countryside whilst out doing his land surveying work, so he bought some books on how to identify them and also began to form a reference collection of pressed specimens. In 1844 he met and became good friends with amateur entomologist Henry Walter Bates, who soon got Wallace interested in collecting British beetles. Not long afterwards Wallace also started to collect butterflies and moths. In a letter to Bates in 1846 he relates how he bought a 28 drawer cedar and mahogany insect cabinet to house his beetles in. He mentions that he only had glass fitted to 12 of the 28 drawer lids - which gives a good indication of the size of his collection at that time - i.e. fewer specimens than would fill 12 of the drawers. Since he had been collecting insects for two years up to the time he received the cabinet, this indicates that he was perhaps collecting about 6 drawers worth of specimens per year. This cabinet is the only one known to have been ever owned by Wallace (he kept the specimens he later collected in the tropics in entomological storeboxes) and it is still owned by his descendents. We don't currently know what became of Wallace's early collections (or how the specimens were labelled), although there is a suggestion that he donated them to the Mechanics Institute in Neath and that they may have ended up in the Swansea Museum. In 1848 Wallace donated two specimens of a beetle (Agonum (near moestum)) from salt marshes near Swansea to the Natural History Museum. They should bear a museum label with the accession number "BM 48.33", but unfortunately they can't currently be found.

[to be continued] 

THE AMAZON (1848 - 1852)

By early 1852 Wallace was in poor health and in no condition to continue travelling. He decided to return to England, and began the long trip back down the Rio Negro and Amazon to Pará. Passing through Barra (now known as Manaus), Wallace found to his dismay that most of his specimens from the preceding two years, which he had been sending down river, had been delayed by the officials there because they were worried that the boxes might contain contraband. After declaring their contents, he collected the six large cases and set sail for England on the brig Helen on the 12 July.

Tragically, twenty-six days into the voyage, his ship caught fire and sank, taking with it all the specimens he had collected during the last two years, plus his collection of live animals, and most of his field notes. All he managed to rescue was a tin box containing a few shirts, into which he quickly put his watch, some money, drawings he had made of fish and palms, plus some notes and observations of the Rio Negro and Uaupés. Wallace and the crew struggled to survive in a pair of badly leaking lifeboats, and very fortuitously, after 10 days drifting on the open sea they were picked up by a passing cargo ship making its way back to England. They landed at Deal in England, on the 1st of October 1852. Luckily, Samuel Stevens, Wallace’s agent in London, had had the foresight to insure his collections for £200. Wallace estimated they had been worth £500, but it was certainly a lot better than nothing.

THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO (1854 - 1862)

Wallace and his assistants collected specimens of about 5000 new animal (and a few fern) species in the Malay Archipelago. I based this on estimates that he and others who worked on his collections gave e.g. this from his book The Malay Archipelago:

"Nearly two thousand of my Coleoptera, and many hundreds of my butterflies, have been already described by various eminent naturalists, British and foreign; but a much larger number remains undescribed. Among those to whom science is most indebted for this laborious work, I must name Mr. F. P. Pascoe, late President of the Entomological Society of London, who has almost completed the classification and description of my large collection of Longicorn beetles (now in his possession), comprising more than a thousand species, of which at least nine hundred were previously undescribed, and new to European cabinets.

The remaining orders of insects, comprising probably more than two thousand species, are in the collection of Mr. William Wilson Saunders, who has caused the larger portion of them to be described by good entomologists. The Hymenoptera alone amounted to more than nine hundred species, among which were two hundred and eighty different kinds of ants, of which two hundred were new."

FATE OF WALLACE'S COLLECTIONS

Around 1867 Wallace decided to sell his own private collection and in his autobiography, My Life (1905), he mentions that he retained "…only a few boxes of duplicates to serve as mementoes". The insects he kept are now in the Natural History Museum, London, where is is being kept as a seperate collection, while the birds are now in the Dorsect County Museum.

A good overview of what specimens Wallace collected in the Malay Archipelago can be found in the following paper by the late Donald Baker - CLICK HERE to download a pdf. A good paper by Fagan which discusses Wallace as a collector can be downloaded HERE. Images of some of his specimens can be seen HERE.

INSTITUTIONS WITH WALLACE SPECIMENS

UK

Booth Museum of Natural History, Brighton: A few butterfly specimens.

Cambridge University Herbarium: Fern specimens from Sarawak.

Dorset County Museum: c. 46 bird specimens from the Malay Archipelago and other places (1 from Para). These were part of Wallace's private collection and were acquired by Mr Parkinson Curtis from Wallace's widow after his death. They were left to the Museum in Parkinson Curtis's Will.

English Heritage, Down house: One female specimen of the long-armed chafer Euchirus longimanus in a storebox of Darwin's beetles which is on public display. This specimen was sent to Darwin by Wallace. Wallace wrote to Darwin on September 14th 1868 [?] "I send you by post a pair of the Euchirus longimanus. They are not quite perfect and are very rotten from being kept so long in open boxes but will perhaps answer your purpose." He went on to describe the sounds made by this species "Euchirus longimanus. (Amboyna, Ceram) when in motion makes a low hissing sound caused by protrusion and contraction of the abdomen. When seized it also produces a grating sound by rubbing the hind tibiae against the edges of the elytra." (CLICK HERE to see the letter). Darwin mentioned the stridulation in his book The Descent of Man.

Hunterian Museum, Glasgow: Beetle specimens. CLICK HERE for an example.

Linnean Society, London: Skin of a python. This was donated to the Society by Wallace's grandson John in 1958. It is reputed to be the skin of the snake which Wallace found in the roof of his hut on Amboyna (Ambon Island, Indonesia). In The Malay Archipelago he says "It was about twelve feet long and very thick, capable of doing much mischief and of swallowing a dog or a child."

Manchester Museum: A few birds. Unidentified Chrysomelidae beetles.

Natural History Museum, London: A huge selection of all of the groups of organisms he collected, including butterflies and birds from the Amazon, and insects, shells, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and one or more ferns from the Malay Archipelago. A paper mentioning his bird specimens in the NHM can be seen HERE.

National Museum of Wales: c. 50 beetles, one butterfly and 5 bird skins.

Oxford University Museum of Natural History: Numerous insect specimens. An overview of these can be found listed HERE.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Palm specimens from the Amazon. Also CLICK HERE.

University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge: Quite a large number of bird specimens. Amongst these are five of Wallace's skins of Birds of Paradise were sold to the museum by Wallace's son William.

World Museum, Liverpool: Orangutan specimens from Sarawak: one folded skin and skull of a male, and one other skull of a now lost mounted specimen. These were from Lord Derby's collection. He purchased five skins and skulls and two skeletons of orangutans that Wallace collected in Sarawak.

Germany

Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin: Cicindelinae (tiger beetles) ex. the Hermann Schaum collection. Probably a lot of other material too.

The Netherlands

Naturalis, Leiden: 89 bird specimens (including type specimens) from the Malay Archipelago. See http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/document/44313

USA

California Academy of Sciences: c. 11 beetles from the Malay Archipelago ex. the Edwin C. Van Dyke collection.

Field Museum, Chicago: One or more bird specimens.

Australia

Macleay Museum, University of Sydney:

Museum Victoria, Melbourne: 192 birds (purchased from John Gould), 2 bats, 4 mammals plus numerous insects. An example of one of the birds can be SEEN HERE.

South Australian Museum, Adelaide

Western Australian Museum, Perth: About 400 Hemiptera (true bugs) from the Malay Archipelago in the Francis Buchanan White Collection.

Singapore

Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (formerly Raffles Museum): One bird specimen - a flycatcher.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Very many thanks to the following for useful information: Kate Hebditch (Dorset County Museum); Norm Penny (CAS); Rolf Schmidt (Museum Victoria); Fred Edwards (UK); Julian Carter (National Museum of Wales); Bernd Jaeger (Museum für Naturkunde).

REFERENCES

Fungus weevil (Anthribidae) collected in Sarawak, Borneo. © National Museum of Wales, Cardiff & Fred EdwardsDetail of the tail of a male greater bird of paradise (Paradisaea apoda) from Aru. © University Museum of Zoology Cambridge & Fred Edwards

Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith