4 04 MY LIFE 



others — I might have spent the rest of my life upon similar 

 work, for which my own collection afforded ample materials, 

 and thus settled down into a regular " species-monger." For 

 even in this humble occupation there is a great fascination; 

 constant difficulties are encountered in unravelling the mis- 

 takes of previous describers who have had imperfect materials, 

 while the detection of those minute differences, which often 

 serve to distinguish allied species, and the many curious modi- 

 fications of structure which characterize genera or their sub- 

 divisions, become intensely interesting, especially when, after 

 weeks of study, a whole series of specimens, which seemed at 

 first hardly distinguishable, are gradually separated into well- 

 defined species, and order arises out of chaos. 



The series of papers on birds and insects now described, 

 together with others on the physical geography of the archi- 

 pelago and its various races of man, furnished me with the 

 necessary materials for that general sketch of the natural 

 history of the islands and of the various interesting problems 

 which arise from its study, which has made my " Malay 

 Archipelago " the most popular of my books. At the same 

 time it opened up so many fields of research as to render me 

 indisposed for further technical work in the mere description 

 of my collections, which I should certainly never have been 

 able to complete. I therefore now began to dispose of 

 various portions of my insects to students of special groups, 

 who undertook to publish lists of them with descriptions of 

 the new species, reserving for myself only a few boxes of 

 duplicates to serve as mementoes of the exquisite or fantastic 

 organisms which I had procured during my eight years' wan- 

 derings. 



In order that my scientific friends might be able to see the 

 chief treasures which I had brought home, I displayed a 

 series of the rarest and most beautiful of my birds and butter- 

 flies in Mr. Sims's large photographic gallery in the same 

 manner as I had found so effective with my New Guinea 

 collections at Ternate. The entire series of my parrots, 

 pigeons, and paradise birds, when laid out on long tables 

 covered with white paper, formed a display of brilliant 



