﻿THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



Vol. XLV.] AUGUST, 1912. [No. 591 



" WHERE WALLACE TROD " : BEING SOME ACCOUNT 

 OF AN ENTOMOLOGICAL TRIP TO MT. SERAMBU, 

 SARAWAK, BORNEO. 



By J. C. MouLTON, B.Sc, F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.E.S., 

 Curator of the Sarawak Museum. 



(Plates V. & VI.) 



Just as the Galapagos Isles will always be famous for the 

 birth of Darwin's great theory of Natural Selection, just as 

 Ternate will always share this fame as the birthplace of the 

 same idea to Wallace, so too, should Sarawak be remembered 

 in connection with Wallace's earlier essay on the Origin of 

 Species,* which foreshadowed that written three years later in 

 Ternate, and read before the Linnean Society in conjunction 

 with Darwin's essay in 1858. 



During Wallace's travels in the Malay Archipelago, lasting 

 over eight years, the great naturalist spent fifteen months in 

 Sarawak, nine of which he spent at Simunjan, which he describes 

 as the best collecting-ground for insects found in all his travels, 

 and, as most readers will remember, he gives some astonishing 

 figures to illustrate this. Besides this, he also spent four weeks 

 on a mountain called Serambu, not far from Kuching, the capital 

 of Sarawak ; this was from December, 1855, to January, 1856. 

 His essay was written in February, 1855, at Santubong, the 

 Sarawak seaside resort, and was published in September, 1855. 

 As he tells us in his 'Life,' 1905 (p. 354), through many even- 

 ings and wet days in soHtude he used to " ponder over the 

 problem which was rarely absent from my thoughts," and there 

 is little doubt that the quiet time spent on Peninjau (a spur of 

 Serambu) enabled him to put in many quiet hours of wrestling 

 with the all-absorbing riddle. It was therefore with feelings of 

 the liveliest interest that I first beheld Mt. Serambu, just three 



■'■ " On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species," 

 published in ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' September, 1855, 

 and reprinted as Essay I. in ' Contributions to the Tlieory of Natra-al 

 Selection,' by the same author, 1870. 



ENTOM. — AUGUST, 1912. S 



