My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO 195food and a comfortable house soon restored us togood health,I now received letters informing me of the receptionof the paper on " The Tendency of Varietiesto depart indefinitely from the Original Type," whichI had sent to Darwin, and in a letter home I thusrefer to it : "I have received letters from Mr. Darwinand Dr. Hooker, two of the most eminent naturalistsin England, which have highly gratified me. I sentMr. Darwin an essay on a subject upon which he isnow writing a great work. He showed it to Dr.Hooker and Sir Charles Lyell, who thought so highlyof it that they had it read before the Linnean Society.This insures me the acquaintance of these eminentmen on my return home."The next two years were spent principally atTernate, Batchian, Menado in Celebes, and Amboyna.In February, i860, I left the last-named placewith the intention of again visiting the Ke Islands.After immense difificulties I reached Coram, aboutfifty miles beyond the east end of Ceram, where Ipurchased a boat and started for Ke; but after gettinghalf-way, the weather was so bad and the winds soadverse that I was obliged to return to the MatabelloIslands, and thence by way of Coram and thecoast of Ceram to the great island of Waigiou.northThiswas a long and most unfortunate voyage. I foundthere, however, what I chiefly went for—the rare redbird of paradise {Paradisea rubra) ; but during thethree months I lived there, often with very little food,I obtained only about seventy species of birds, mostlythe same as those from New Cuinea, though a fewspecies of parrots, pigeons, kingfishers, and otherbirds were new. Insects were never abundant, but by