The Naturalist on the River Amazons

The first edition, in 1863, was long and full of technical description. The second edition, in 1864, was abridged, with most of the technical description removed, making for a shorter and more readable book which has been reprinted many times. Bates prefaced the 1864 edition by writing

Having been urged to prepare a new edition of this work for a wider circle than that contemplated in the former one, I have thought it advisable to condense those portions which, treating of abstruse scientific questions, presuppose a larger amount of Natural History knowledge than an author has a right to expect of the general reader.

— Henry Bates[P 1]

An unabridged edition was reissued only after 30 years, in 1892; it appeared together with a 'memoir' of Bates by Edward Clodd.

In 1847, Bates and his friend Alfred Russel Wallace, both in their early twenties,[lower-alpha 1] agreed that they would jointly make a collecting trip to the Amazon "towards solving the problem of origin of species".[1] They had been inspired by reading the American entomologist William Henry Edwards's pioneering 1847 book A Voyage Up the River Amazon, with a residency at Pará.[3][4]

Neither had much money, so they determined to fund themselves by collecting and selling fine specimens of birds and insects.[5] Both made extensive travels — in different parts of the Amazon basin — creating large natural history collections, especially of insects. Wallace sailed back to England in 1852 after four years; on the voyage, his ship caught fire, and his collection was destroyed; undeterred, he set out again, leading eventually (1869) to a comparable book, The Malay Archipelago.[6][7][8] By the time he came home in November 1859,[9] Bates had collected over 14,000 species, of which 8,000 were new to science.[5] His observations of the coloration of butterflies led him to describe what is now called Batesian mimicry, where an edible species protects itself from predators by appearing like a distasteful species.[5] Bates's account of his stay, including observations of nature and the people around him, occupies his book.

In the abridged version, there is a balance between descriptions of places and adventures, and the wildlife seen there. The style is accurate, but vivid and direct:

The house lizards belong to a peculiar family, the Geckos, and are found even in the best-kept chambers, most frequently on the walls and ceilings, to which they cling motionless by day, being active only at night. They are of speckled grey or ashy colours. The structure of their feet is beautifully adapted for clinging to and running over smooth surfaces; the underside of their toes being expanded into cushions, beneath which folds of skin form a series of flexible plates. By means of this apparatus they can walk or run across a smooth ceiling with their backs downwards ; the plated soles, by quick muscular action, exhausting and admitting air alternately. The Geckos are very repulsive in appearance.

— Bates, chapter 1.

The book begins and ends suddenly. The journey out, as reviewer Joseph James observes,[10] is dismissed in a few words. The last few lines of the book run:

On the 6th of June, when in 7° 55' N. lat. and 52° 30' W. long., and therefore about 400 miles from the mouth of the main Amazons, we passed numerous patches of floating grass mingled with tree-trunks and withered foliage. Amongst these masses I espied many fruits of that peculiarly Amazonian tree the Ubussu palm; this was the last I saw of the Great River.

— Bates

"Masked-dance and wedding-feast of Tucuna Indians" by Josiah Wood Whymper

There are 39 illustrations, some of animals and plants, some of human topics such as the "Masked-dance and wedding-feast of Tucuna Indians", which is signed by Josiah Wood Whymper. Some illustrations including "Turtle Fishing and Adventure with Alligator"[P 2] are by the German illustrator Johann Baptist Zwecker; some, such as "Bird-Killing Spider (Mygale Avicularia) Attacking Finches"[P 3] are by E.W. Robinson; others by the zoological artist Joseph Wolf.[11]

Map of the Amazon basin, showing places where Bates worked during his 11 year stay

The structure of the readable, cut-down second edition of 1864 is as follows:

1 Pará — arrival, aspect of the country, etc. (now the city of Belém)

Bates arrives, and at once starts learning about the country's peoples and natural history.

The impressions received during this first walk can never wholly fade from my mind... Amongst them were several handsome women, dressed in a slovenly manner, barefoot or shod in loose slippers; but wearing richly-decorated ear-rings, and around their necks strings of very large gold beads. They had dark expressive eyes, and remarkably rich heads of hair. It was a mere fancy, but I thought the mingled squalor, luxuriance and beauty of these women were pointedly in harmony with the rest of the scene; so striking, in the view, was the mixture of natural riches and human poverty.

— Bates[P 4]

He soon notices and describes the leafcutter ants.[P 5] He stays in Pará for 18 months, making short trips into the interior; the city is clean and safe compared to others in Brazil.[P 6]

2 Pará — the swampy forests, etc.

Bates takes a house a few miles outside town on the edge of the forest, and soon starts to notice butterflies and climbing palms. He begins collecting during the day, and making notes and preparing specimens in the evening. At first he is disappointed by how few signs there are of larger animals such as monkeys, tapir or jaguar. Later he realizes these do exist, but are widely scattered and very shy. He meets a landowner who complains of the high price of slaves. There are colossal trees with buttressed trunks.

3 Pará — religious holidays, marmoset monkeys, serpents, insects

He witnesses Catholic processions, notably the festival for Our Lady of Nazareth at Pará. He describes the few monkeys that can be seen in the area, and the strange Amphisbaena, a legless lizard. There are beautiful Morpho butterflies of different species, and assorted spiders, including "monstrous" hairy ones.

4 The Tocantins and Cametá

Bates and Wallace travel up the Tocantins river, hiring a two-masted boat, a crew of three, and taking provisions for three months. At Baiao he is astonished to be shown a young man's books including Virgil, Terence, Cicero and Livy: "an unexpected sight, a classical library in a mud-plastered and palm-thatched hut on the banks of the Tocantins".[P 7] Their host kills an ox in their honour, but Bates is kept awake by swarms of rats and cockroaches.[P 8] They see the hyacinthine macaw which can crush hard palm nuts with its beak,[P 9] and two species of freshwater dolphin, one new to science.[P 10] Bates visits Cameta; Wallace goes to explore the Guama and Capim rivers.[P 11] The large bird-eating spider (Mygalomorphae) has urticating hairs: Bates handles the first specimen "incautiously, and I suffered terribly for three days". He sees some children leading one with a cord around its waist like a dog.[P 12] On the return journey, the boat with his baggage leaves before him; when he catches up with it, he finds it "leaking at all points".[P 13]

5 Caripí and the Bay of Marajó

Bates stays three months in an old mansion on the coast, going insect-hunting with a German who lives in the woods. His room is full of four species of bat: one leaf-nosed bat, Phyllostoma, bites him on the hip: "This was rather unpleasant".[P 14] He finds stewed giant anteater delicious, like goose.[P 15] Several times he shoots hummingbird hawkmoths, mistaking them for hummingbirds.[P 16] He catches a pale brown tree snake 4 ft 8 in (140 cm) long, but only 1/4 in (6mm) thick, and a pale green one 6 ft (180 cm) long "undistinguishable amidst the foliage".[P 17] When he has shot all the game around his house, he goes hunting with a neighbour by canoe, getting some agouti and paca rodents.[P 18]

6 The Lower Amazons — Pará to Obydos (now the city of Óbidos)

He describes how travellers went upriver before the steamboats arrived, and gives a history of earlier explorations of the Amazons. His preparations for the voyage to Obydos include household goods, provisions, ammunition, boxes, books and "a hundredweight (50 kg) of copper money".[P 19] There are many species of palms along a river channel.[P 20] A rare species of alligator and the armoured Loricaria fish are caught.[P 21] Obydos is a pleasant town of 1200 people, on cliffs of pink and yellow clays, surrounded by cocoa plantations with four kinds of monkey and the huge Morpho hecuba butterfly up to 8 in (20 cm) across, as well as slow-flying Heliconius butterflies in great numbers.[P 22] He obtains a musical cricket, Chlorocoelus tanana.[P 23]

Pelopaeus wasp building nest

7 The Lower Amazons — Obydos to Manaos, or the Barra of the Rio Negro

Bates leaves Obydos; he finds the people lazy, as otherwise they could easily become comfortable with mixed farming. They sail through a tremendous storm.[P 24] He finds a Pterochroza grasshopper whose forewings perfectly resemble leaves,[P 25] the Victoria waterlily, masses of ticks, the howler monkey and large Morpho butterflies. He meets Wallace again at Barra.[P 26] Back in Para, he catches yellow fever.

8 Santarem

He describes Santarem and the customs of its people. He goes on short "excursions" around the little town. The pure "Indians" choose to build light open shelters, resting inside in hammocks, whereas those of mixed or African origin build more substantial mud huts.[P 27] He enjoys watching small pale green Bembex and other kinds of sand wasps.[P 28] He regrets that the people cut down the Oenocarpus distichus palm to harvest its fruits, which yield a milky, nutty beverage.[P 29] He describes some potter wasps and mason bees.[P 30] He meets a "feiticeira" or witch who knows the uses of many plants, but remarks that "the Indian men all become sceptics after a little intercourse with the whites" and that her witchcraft "was of a very weak quality" though others have more dangerous tricks.[P 31]

9 Voyage up the Tapajos

Bates hires a boat made of stonewood for a three month trip up the Tapajos river. He prepares for the trip by salting meat, grinding coffee, and placing all the food in tin boxes to keep insects and damp out. He buys trade-goods such as fishhooks, axes, knives and beads.[P 32] He witnesses poison-fishing using lianas of Paullinia pinnata.[P 33] At Point Cajetuba he finds a line of dead fire-ants, "an inch or two in height and breadth", washed up on the shore "without interruption for miles".[P 34] Terrible wounds are inflicted by the stingray[P 33] and the piranha.[P 35] His men make a canoe from a trunk of the stonewood tree,[P 36] and an anaconda steals two chickens from a cage on his boat; the snake is "only 18 feet nine inches (6 metres) in length".[P 37] Becoming weak from a diet of fish, he eats a spider monkey, finding it delicious.[P 38] They notice the river is gently tidal, 530 miles (850 km) from its mouth, "a proof of the extreme flatness of the land".[P 39] Bates is unimpressed by a homeopathy-crazed priest,[P 40] especially when his pills prove useless against fever.[P 41]

10 The Upper Amazons — Voyage to Ega (now the city of Tefé)

He sails from Barra (continuing the story from Chapter 7) to Ega. In Solimões (the Upper Amazons) the soil is clay, alluvium or deep humus, with rich vegetation.[P 42] They catch a manatee (sea cow) which tastes like coarse pork with greenish, fish-flavoured fat, and he is badly bitten by small "Pium" bloodsucking flies.[P 43] Pieces of pumice have floated 1200 miles (1900 km) from the Andes volcanoes.[P 44] Bates observes a large landslip on which masses of giant forest trees rock to and fro.[P 45] He notes there are discomforts but "scarcely any danger from wild animals".[P 46] He becomes desperate for intellectual society, running out of reading matter, even the advertisements in the Athenaeum journal.[P 47] He describes the food and fruits at Ega, and the curious seasons, with two wet and two dry seasons each year, the river thus rising and falling twice. The people regularly eat turtles.[P 48]

"Blow-gun, quiver, and arrow"

11 Excursions in the Neighbourhood of Ega

Painting by William Swainson, 1841, of the crested oropendola, "a handsome bird with chestnut and saffron-coloured plumage"[P 49]

Bates goes hunting with a native, who brings down a crested oropendola with a blowpipe at a range of 30 yards (27 metres); he notes that the usefully silent weapon can kill at twice that range, but that he and Wallace "found it very difficult to hold steady the long tubes".[P 49] Around a campfire, he listens to tales; the Bouto or river dolphin used to take "the shape of a beautiful woman, with hair hanging loose to her heels, and walking ashore at night in the streets of Ega, to entice the young men down to the water" where the Bouto would grab them and "plunge beneath the waves with a triumphant cry".[P 50] They go turtle-hunting; and Bates kills an alligator with a heavy stick.[P 51] He finds many footprints of the jaguar, and "the great pleasure" of seeing the "rare and curious umbrella bird".[P 52] Arrived in Catua, he admires a woman of 17: "her figure was almost faultless", and her blue mouth "gave quite a captivating finish to her appearance", but she was "extremely bashful". He is amazed at how much alcohol the "shy Indian and Mameluco maidens" can drink, never giving way to their suitors without it.[P 53]

12 Animals of the Neighbourhood of Ega

Having discovered over 3000 new species at Ega, Bates agrees that discovery "forms but a small item in the interest belonging to the study of the living creation."[P 54] He describes the scarlet-faced and other monkeys, "a curious animal", the kinkajou, bats, and toucans. He found 18 species "of true Papilio (swallowtail) butterflies and about 550 butterfly species in all at Ega, among over 7000 species of insect. He describes some unusual insects and their behaviour, including a moth which suspends its cocoon on a long strong silk thread, which while conspicuous is hard for birds to attack.[P 55] He describes at length various species of Eciton or army ants, noting that confused accounts of these have appeared in travel books, then copied into natural histories.

13 Excursions beyond Ega

In November 1856 Bates travels on a steamboat from Ega upriver to Tunantins; it travels all night despite the thick darkness, and makes the 240 miles (380 km) in four days, with the captain at the wheel almost the whole time. He is delighted to discover a new butterfly, Catagramma excelsior, the largest of its genus. He finds the forest at St Paulo glorious, writing that five years would not be enough "to exhaust the treasures of its neighbourhood in Zoology and Botany":[P 56]

At mid-day the vertical sun penetrates into the gloomy depths of this romantic spot, lighting up the leafy banks of the rivulet and its clean sandy margins, where numbers of scarlet, green, and black tanagers and brightly-coloured butterflies sport about in the stray beams. Sparkling brooks, large and small, traverse the glorious forest...

— Bates[P 56]

• The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace, 1869

• Bates, H. W. (1863). The naturalist on the River Amazons, a record of adventures, habits of animals, sketches of Brazilian and Indian life and aspects of nature under the Equator during eleven years of travel. London: J. Murray. (First edition.)

--- Second edition, 1864. (Reprinted in paperback facsimile, Elibron Classics, 2005.)

• Edwards, William Henry (1861). A voyage up the River Amazon: including a residence at Pará. J. Murray.
• Wallace, Alfred Russel (1869). The Malay Archipelago: The land of the orang-utan, and the bird of paradise. A narrative of travel, with sketches of man and nature (1 ed.). Macmillan.

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• The Naturalist on the River Amazons at Project Gutenberg
• First edition (1863) in 2 volumes, Murray, London. Volume 1; Volume 2.
• Reprint of 2nd (abridged, 1864) edition (Dent, London; Dutton, New York) (with 'Appreciation' by Charles Darwin)
• 1892 Edition, single volume, with a Memoir of the Author by Edward Clodd.