The Naturalist on the River Amazon

This is a first-hand account, with illustrations, of Henry Walter Bates' Amazon expedition, which he undertook in 1848 with Alfred Russel Wallace. It records the astonishing range of natural life in the region and was, according to Darwin, 'the best work of natural history travels ever published in England.'

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First published in 1863, this is a first-hand account of Henry Walter Bates' eleven-year expedition to the river Amazon in 1848, during which he discovered some eight thousand species unknown to the natural sciences. Written in the first person, it records the astonishing range of natural life in the regions traversed by the Amazon and its tributaries. Describing his adventures south of the equator, Bates takes the reader through Pará, Tocantins, Cametá, Marajó, Caripí, Obydos, Manos, Santarem, Tapajos, and Ega, descriptively cataloguing the rich vegetation, aboriginal population, and wondrous birds, animals and insects of these regions. More than just a scientist's log, the work that took Bates three years to complete was considered by Darwin to be 'the best work of natural history travels ever published in England.' This third edition of the book (1873) also contains numerous illustrations by the noted zoologist Joseph Wolf.