The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

PREFACEixin various scientific periodicals, on more general sulijectsconnected with them.Nearly two thousand of my Coleoptera, and many hundredsof my butterflies, have been already described by variouseminent naturalists, British and foreign ; but a much largernumber x'emains undescribed. Among those to -whom scienceis most indebted for this laborious woi'k, I must name Mr. F. P.Pascoe, late President of the Entomological Society of London,who has almost completed the classification and description ofmy large collection of Longicorn beetles (now in his possession),comprising more than a thousand si^ecies, of which at least ninehundred were previously undescribed, and new to Europeancabinets.The remaining orders of insects,comprising probably morethan two thousand species, are in the collection of ^h\ ^VilliamWilson Saunders, v>'ho has caused the larger portion ofbe described by good entomologists.them toThe Hymenoptera aloneamounted to more than nine hundred species, among which weretwo hundred and eighty different kinds of ants, of which twohundz'ed were new.The six years' delay in j)ublishing my ti'avels thus enablesme to give what I hope may be an interesting and instructivesketch of the main results yet arrived at bj^ the studj'' of mycollections ; and as the countries I have to describe are notmuch visited or written about, and their social and physicalconditions are not lial^le to rapid change, I lielieve and hopethat my readers will gain much more than they willlose, bynot having read my book six years ago, and by this timeperhajos forgotten all about it.I must now say a few woi'ds on the plan of my woi'k.My journeys to the various islands were regulated by theseasons and the means of conveyance. I visited some islandstwo or three times at distant intervals, and in some cases had tomake the same voyage four times ovei'. A chronological arrangementwould have puzzled my readers.They would never