404 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



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' 

 wanderings. 



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 

 colours, strange forms, and exquisite texture that could hardly 

 be surpassed ; and when to these were added the most curious 

 and beautiful among the warblers, flycatchers, drongos, star- 

 lings, gapers, ground thrushes, woodpeckers, barbets, cuckoos, 

 trogons, kingfishers, hornbills, and pheasants, the general 

 effect of the whole, and the impression it gave of the 

 inexhaustible variety and beauty of nature in her richest 

 treasure houses, was far superior to that of any collection of 

 stuffed and mounted birds I have ever seen. 



