CONTRIBUTOKS TO THE FIRST SERIES OF ' THE IBIs/ 213 



Dr. a. R. WALLACE. 



It must always afford the greatest pleasure to Members of 

 our Union to recall the fact that Dr. Wallace was one of the 

 earliest contributors to the pages of 'The Ibis/ and that he 

 was one of our first lionorarj'^ Members^ as long ago as the 

 year 1860. It would have been indeed a loss if so great an. 

 authority had failed to give us some account of the ornitho- 

 logical results of his travels, and if our " Darivmus alier,'" 

 as he was termed when presented for his Doctor's degree at 

 Oxford, had not initiated us into the mysteries of the Amazon 

 and the Malay Archipelago, so little understood at that date. 



Alfred Russel Wallace, the son of Thomas Vere Wallace, 

 a gentleman of ancient Scottish lineage, was born at Usk in 

 Monmouthshire on January 8th, 1823, and was educated at 

 Hertford Grammar School under Mr. C. II. Crutwell. From 

 1838 onwards he acted as assistant to his brother William, a 

 land-surveyor and architect, in the counties of Bedford, 

 Eadnor, Brecon, Shropshire, and Glamorgan, where he made 

 some progress in Geology and Botany, but devoted himself 

 in particular to Entomology. He began to write articles, 

 though he did not eventually publish them, and on one occa- 

 sion lectured at Neath on the South Wales Fauna. So the 

 time passed until 1844, when he met at Leicester Mr. H. W. 

 Bates, then also mainly interested in Entomology. This 

 friendship was the turning-point of Wallace's career, for, 

 finding that he had no great liking for the teaching or other 

 professions which he had tried in turn, he decided to travel. 

 Darwin's 'Voyage' and Humboldt's 'Personal Narrative' 

 greatly influenced his decision, while his ideas were 

 encouraged in addition by Mr. E. Doubleday, of the British 

 Museum. The perusal of W. H. Edwards's ' Voyage to Para ' 

 finally settled the exact destination, and Bates and Wallace 

 started in company in 1848 from Liverpool on the barque 



