Bussei 



A Memoir by E. R. SYKES. 



the death of Alfred Russel Wallace the last 

 link with the great workers on evolution, whose 

 names adorn the mid-nineteenth century, is 

 broken. One by one, Darwin, Hooker, Huxley, 

 &c., they have passed away, and now death 

 has taken from us the last, and one of the 

 greatest. 



We, of the Dorset Field Club, have a special interest in 

 Wallace ; he was an Ordinary Member of the Club for some 

 years, and in 1909 became one of our Honorary Members ; 

 to many of us he was personally known, and not a mere 

 abstract personality. 



Born on January 8th, 1823, at Usk, in Monmouthshire, 

 he was educated at Hertford Grammar School, and for a 

 short time assisted his brother as a land surveyor. Later, 

 he became a schoolmaster at Leicester, and there, about 

 1845, he became friends with H. W. Bates, whose works on 

 the Amazon Region are so well known. This was a turning 

 point in his career for, in 1848, he and Bates, both already 

 keen students of nature, went out together to study and 

 collect animals and plants in South America. After a short 

 time they separated, and Wallace spent four years in the 

 country, exploring the Rio Negro. Unfortunately the bulk 

 of his collection was lost, owing to fire on the ship by which 

 he returned home. In 1854 he started on his classic expedition 



