In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace ...

The Evolution of a Naturalist /63
Figure 2-3 The Rio Negro, mapped by the Royal Geographical Society based
on Wallace’s observations and descriptions. After exploring the Amazon for
several years together, Bates and Wallace split up, Bates taking the Upper
Amazon while Wallace ascended the Rio Negro and the virtually unexplored
Uaupés. This was Wallace’s first expedition and it lasted a total of four years.
(From My Life, 1905, v. I, 320)
and you must expect great things from him. In perseverance and real knowledge
of the subject, he goes ahead of me, and is worthy of all success.” 20
Wallace did follow up the profession, in more ways than one. He became
a profitable collector, and “because I am so much interested in the country
and the people that I am determined to see and know more of it and them
than any other European traveller,” he told Stevens from Guia, Rio Negro, in
January 1851. “If I do not get profit, I hope at least to get some credit as an
industrious and persevering traveller.” But success in collecting for both naturalists
was beyond the wildest of their imaginations, enabling them to continue
exploring indefinitely. The first shipment to England consisted of 400
butterflies, 450 beetles, and 1,300 other assorted insects. Stevens was able to
sell most of them through advertisements, such as the following that appeared
on the inside cover in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History:
TO NATURALISTS, &c.
samuel stevens, Natural History Agent, No. 24 Bloomsbury Street, Bedford
Square, begs to announce that he has recently received from South America