Frontispiece to volume 1 by Josiah Wood Whymper, entitled "Adventure with Curl-Crested Toucans". The image is misleading as Bates was not carrying a gun when he encountered the birds.[1]
Author
Henry Walter Bates
Illustrator
E. W. Robinson, Josiah Wood Whymper, Joseph Wolf, Johann Baptist Zwecker, etc.
Language
English
Genre
Natural history, Travel
Publisher
John Murray
Publication date
1863
Pages
466
The Naturalist on the River Amazons, subtitled A Record of the Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature under the Equator, during Eleven Years of Travel, is an 1863 book by the British naturalist Henry Walter Bates about his expedition to the Amazon basin. Bates and his friend Alfred Russel Wallace set out to obtain new species and new evidence for evolution by natural selection, as well as exotic specimens to sell. He explored thousands of miles of the Amazon and its tributaries, and collected over 14,000 species, of which 8,000 were new to science. His observations of the coloration of butterflies led him to discover Batesian mimicry.
The book contains an evenly distributed mixture of natural history, travel, and observation of human societies, including the towns with their Catholic processions. Only the most remarkable discoveries of animals and plants are described, and theories such as evolution and mimicry are barely mentioned. Bates remarks that finding a new species is only the start; he also describes animal behaviour, sometimes in detail, as for the army ants. He constantly relates the wildlife to the people, explaining how the people hunt, what they eat and what they use as medicines. The book is illustrated with drawings by leading artists including E. W. Robinson, Josiah Wood Whymper, Joseph Wolf and Johann Baptist Zwecker.
On Bates's return to England, he was encouraged by Charles Darwin to write up his eleven-year stay in the Amazon as a book. The result was widely admired, not least by Darwin:
The best book of Natural History Travels ever published in England.
— Charles Darwin, Letter to Bates (1863)[2]
Other reviewers sometimes disagreed with the book's support for evolution, but generally enjoyed his account of the journey, scenery, people, and natural history. The book has been reprinted many times, mostly in Bates's own effective abridgement for the second edition, which omitted the more technical descriptions.
^Cite error: The named reference Mallet was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Darwin, Charles (18 April 1863). "Darwin to Bates, H.W." Letter 4107. Darwin Correspondence Project. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
and 25 Related for: The Naturalist on the River Amazons information
TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazons, subtitled A Record of the Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature...
science. Bates wrote up his findings in his best-known work, TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazons. Bates was born in Leicester to a literate middle-class family...
TheAmazonRiver (UK: /ˈæməzən/, US: /ˈæməzɒn/; Spanish: Río Amazonas, Portuguese: Rio Amazonas) in South America is the largest river by discharge volume...
the men, as was their custom. Orellana derived the name Amazonas from theAmazons of Greek mythology, described by Herodotus and Diodorus. Based on archaeological...
forests. The tree was noted by the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates in his 1863 book TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazons, where he wrote that [The hyacinth...
TheAmazonriver dolphin (Inia geoffrensis), also known as the boto, bufeo or pink river dolphin, is a species of toothed whale endemic to South America...
body; sometimes it snaps off during mating. The account was dismissed as fanciful until the French naturalist Georges Cuvier described it in his 1817 Le...
Philosophy, or Exposition with Regard to the Natural History of Animals") is an 1809 book by the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in which he outlines...
observed, in the vineyards of the southern Rhône region of France. Henry Walter Bates publishes TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazons. February 17 – First meeting...
in Nature showed that anatomically, humans are apes, then TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazons by Henry Walter Bates provided empirical evidence of natural...
Bates's 1863 book TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazons describes his extensive studies of the insects in theAmazon basin, and especially the butterflies. He...
Jupati River is a river of Amapá state in Brazil. It is a tributary of theAmazonRiver. Bates, Henry Walter (1962). TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazons. University...
in Nature showed that anatomically, humans are apes, then TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazons by Henry Walter Bates provided empirical evidence of natural...
Leeuwenhoek visited the Tsar Peter the Great on his boat, moored in the Schie or the Arsenaal. On this occasion he presented the Tsar with an "eel-viewer"...
(/lɪˈdɛkər/; 25 July 1849 – 16 April 1915) was an English naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history. Richard Lydekker was born at Tavistock...
Bernstein discovers the Waigeo home of Wilson's bird-of-paradise. Alfred Russel Wallace publishes TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazons Gustav Radde Reisen...
residency at Pará. Bates stayed in the Amazons for 11 years, going on to write TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazons (1863); however, Wallace, ill with fever...
Retrieved 2016-02-22. "TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazon - Part III". www.worldwideschool.org. Archived from the original on 2004-07-04. Retrieved 2016-02-22...
Glossary of Dorset Dialect Henry Walter Bates – The NaturalistontheRiverAmazons. William Wells Brown – The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius and His...
Global Information