Illustrated Travels: Discovery, Geography, and Adventure [6 Volumes]
Henry Walter Bates, Illustrated Travels: A Record of Discovery, Geography and Adventure, London, Paris and New York: Casell, Petter, and Galpin, [1869-1875]
In 6 Volumes
Volume I: 378 pages
Volume II: viii, 376 pages
Volume III: viii, 376 pages
Volume IV: viii, 376 pages
Volume V: viii, 376 pages
Volume VI: viii, 376 pages
Each of the volumes is profusely illustrated with engravings throughout the text.
Green cloth board covers with beveled edges, adorned with gilt decoration and titles on both the front and spine along with debossed design at the back board (each)
12.5 x 9.75 in (32 x 25 cm) (each)
Henry Walter Bates's Illustrated Travels: A Record of Discovery, Geography, and Adventure is a comprehensive compilation of exploratory and travel accounts from various contributors who journeyed to some of the most remote and less-documented regions of the world during the mid to late 19th century. Bates, a renowned naturalist and explorer himself, curated this collection, which includes vivid descriptions, scientific observations, and personal narratives of adventure and discovery.
The volumes compile articles that initially appeared in monthly installments, covering a wide array of expeditions across different continents. Notably, Volume I includes "The First Journey of Exploration Across Vancouver Island," a detailed account by Robert Brown of his 1864 expedition. It starts with the Abyssinian Plateau and ends with Vancouver Island, Volume III Adam's Peak, Ceylon to Whale. This inclusion exemplifies the series' dedication to presenting firsthand narratives of significant exploratory endeavors.
Henry Walter Bates, an English explorer and naturalist, was born Feb. 8, 1825. It was highly improbable that Bates would form close friendships with Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker, as he was born into a lower-class provincial family. His parents were stocking makers, and he left school at the age of 13 to work. His travels were financed by the collection and sale of specimens, rather than by a wealthy father or a society patron. Bates gained recognition in the scientific community by traveling to the Amazon in 1848, where he remained for 11 years and collected and identified approximately 14,000 new species of living organisms, primarily insects. Additionally, this rigorous collection effort yielded numerous new discoveries that contributed to the advancement of Darwinian evolution (the Origin of Species was published in the same year as Bates' return from the Amazon). Bates presented a paper to the Linnean Society of London in 1862, in which he observed that numerous South American butterflies that are edible to birds have evolved to resemble completely unrelated species of butterflies that are noxious to birds. These similarities are now referred to as Batesian mimicry, a term that was employed for many years to elucidate the reason why the Viceroy butterfly resembles the unpalatable Monarch. However, it was later discovered that the Viceroy butterfly has an even more unpleasant taste. However, there are numerous additional instances of mimicry that are genuinely Batesian.
NON-EXPORTABLE
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