Alfred Russel Wallace 



Tunantins, 19th November, 1856, has not, I assure you, 

 arisen either from laziness or indifference, but really from 

 pressure of business and an unsettled state of mind. I 

 received your letter at Macassar on my return in July last 

 from a seven months' voyage and residence in the Aru 

 Islands close to New Guinea. I found letters from Aus- 

 tralia, California, yourself, Spruce, Darwin, home, and a 

 lot of interesting Stevensian dispatches. I had six months' 

 collectiouB (mostly in bad condition owing to dampness and 

 sea air) to examine and pack ; about 7,000 insects having 

 to be gone over individually and many of them thoroughly 

 cleaned, besides an extensive collection of birds. I was 

 thus occupied incessantly for a month, and then imme- 

 diately left for a new locality in the interior, where I 

 stayed three months, during which time I had most of my 

 correspondence to answer, and was besides making some 

 collections so curious and interesting that I did not feel 

 inclined to answer your letter till I could tell you some- 

 thing about them. 



At the end of October I returned to Macassar, packed 

 up my collection, and left by steamer for Ternate, via this 

 place, where I have stayed a month, had some good collect- 

 ing, and it is now, on the day of my departure, having all 

 my boxes packed and nothing to do, that I commence a letter 

 to you. 



To persons who have not thought much on the subject 

 I fear my paper on the succession of species will not appear 

 so clear as it does to you. That paper is, of course, only 

 the announcement of the theory, not its development. I 

 have prepared the plan and written portions of an exten- 

 sive work embracing the subject in all its bearings and 

 endeavouring to prove what in the paper I have only in- 

 dicated. It was the promulgation of Forbes's theory which 

 led me to write and publish, for I was annoyed to see such 



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