![]() ![]() It may have been this shared interest in the problem of species, along with Darwin’s encouraging words, that led Wallace to send a draft of his own theory of descent to Down in 1858. Latter in the year he remarked, “I get on very slowly, partly from ill-health … I infinitely admire & honour your zeal & courage in the good cause of Natural Science … may all your theories succeed” (22 December 1857). In a letter of, he alluded to his own unfinished work: “This summer will make the 20 th year (!) since I opened my first-note-book, on the question how & in what way do species & varieties differ from each other”. Darwin was impressed by Wallace’s observations and theoretical abilities. In 1857, Darwin and Wallace exchanged several letters on species variation and distribution. ![]() This extensive field experience formed the basis of theoretical work, especially on geographical distribution (the so-called ‘Wallace line’ dividing Indian and Australasian faunal zones), the origin of human races, and most famously, the problem of species change. He became one of the most well-travelled and experienced field naturalists of his day, with unsurpassed knowledge on tropic flora, fauna, and native peoples. Between 18, he travelled some 14,000 miles across different islands, often living with native inhabitants, and collected around 125,000 specimens, especially butterflies and birds, many of which were unknown to European science. Despite losing most of his collection in a fire on the return to England in 1852, Wallace became known for his exotic specimens and was able to finance another extended voyage to Malaysia. In 1844 he became friends with the entomologist Henry Walter Bates, and the two men travelled to Brazil in 1848 to pursue natural history. He joined an older brother in London as a builder’s apprentice, and the following year started work as a land surveyor with another brother, travelling to different parts of England and Wales and collecting plants. At the age of 13, he was forced to leave school and enter a trade because of financial hardship. He was born in 1823 in Usk, a small town in south-east Wales, and attended a grammar school in Hertford. Wallace was a leading Victorian naturalist, with wide-ranging interests from biogeography and evolutionary theory to spiritualism and politics.
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