![]() They may have ended up in the Swansea Museum, but so far they have not been found. We don't currently know what became of Wallace's early collections (or how the specimens were labelled), although it is likely that he donated them to the Mechanics Institute in Neath (see THIS LETTER and THIS PUBLICATION). This cabinet is the only one known to have been owned by Wallace (he kept the many specimens he later collected in the tropics in entomological storeboxes) and it is still owned by his descendants (it is shown to the right). fewer specimens than would fill 12 of the drawers. He mentions that he only had glass fitted to 12 of the 28 drawer lids - which gives a good indication of the size of his collection at that time - i.e. In a letter to Bates in 1846 he relates how he bought a 28 drawer cedar and mahogany insect cabinet to house his beetles in. ![]() Not long afterwards Wallace also started to collect butterflies and moths. In 1844 he met and became good friends with amateur entomologist Henry Walter Bates, who soon got Wallace interested in collecting British beetles. He wanted to be able to identify the plants he saw in the countryside whilst doing his land surveying work, so he bought some books on how to identify them and began to form a reference collection of pressed specimens. Wallace started to collect natural history specimens, plants in particular, in 1841 whilst he was living near Neath in Wales. ".the main object of all my journeys was to obtain specimens of natural history, both for my private collection and to supply duplicates to museums and amateurs." ( The Malay Archipelago.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |