Notices of New Books. 8537 



Notices of New Books. 



' The Naturalist on the River Amazons.' By Henry Walter 

 Bates. 2 vols. 8vo. London : John Murray, Albemarle Street. 

 1863. 



In the autumn of 1847 Mr. Wallace proposed to Mr. Bates a joint 

 expedition to the River Amazons to make collections of objects 

 in Natural History, dispose of duplicates in London to defray 

 the cost of the expedition, and " gather facts towards solving the 

 question of the origin of species." The first and second of these facts 

 have, I trust, been fully accomplished ; with respect to the third, how- 

 ever wide the fame acquired by Mr. Wallace, and Mr. Bates tells us 

 that it has been wide, I incline to believe that the facts gathered and 

 recorded by Mr. Bates will be quite as acceptable to sober, steady- 

 going naturalists like myself as the most interesting hypotheses that 

 may occur to the more lively imagination of my friend Mr. Wallace. In 

 the spring of 1848 the fellow travellers met in London, and in April 

 started on the passage across the Atlantic. Mr. Wallace returned 

 after a sojourn of four years in primaeval forests ; Mr. Bates stayed 

 seven years longer, returning home in 1859. Mr. Wallace published 

 a narrative of his four years' sojourn under the title of 4 Travels on the 

 Amazons and Rio Negro ;' Mr. Bates presents us with these two 

 volumes as the record of his eleven years' labours. 



It seems strange that four years should have been allowed to elapse 

 after his return before Mr. Bates favoured the public with this record 

 of his observations, but the truth is that he felt diffident of his own 

 powers; doubts as to the value of his materials; and that reluctance 

 which is the characteristic of modest men, to bring himself so promi- 

 nently before the public. Indeed we are indebted to the solicitations 

 of Mr. Darwin for the publication of the work at all. " Mr. Darwin." 

 says the author, " strongly urged me to write a book, and reminded 

 me of it afterwards, when, after having made a commencement, my 

 half-formed resolution began to give way." I can readily believe how 

 arduous was the task ; the labour of collecting materials was a labour 

 of love, the task of dishing up those materials for the public, dreary 

 and wearisome. However, the task is done at last, and done well ; 

 and every naturalist will rejoice that a record has been preserved 

 of one of the most interesting expeditions ever undertaken by a 

 naturalist. 



VOL. XXI. 2 G 



