A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

of a pigment which is deficient in wholly white animals. The explanation, has however, been carried a step further, by experiments showing that the absorption of odours by dead matter, such as clothing, is greatly affected by colour, black being the most powerful absorbent, then blue, red, yellow, and lastly white. We have here a physical cause for the sense-inferiority of totally white animals which may account for their rarity in nature, for few, if any, wild animals are wholly white. The head

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

these were the only kinds of light-vibrations which could be perceived at all. When the need for differentiation of colour arose, rays of greater and of smaller wave-lengths would necessarily be made use of to excite the new sensations required, and we can thus understand why green and blue form the central portion of the visible spectrum, and are the colours which are most agreeable to us in large surfaces; while at its two extremities we find yellow, red, and violet colours which we best

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

, little varied, and can be traced in almost all cases to a special pigment termed chlorophyll, to which is due the general green colaour of leaves; but the recent investigations of Mr. Sorby and others have shown that chlorophyll is not a simple green pigment, but that it really consists of at least seven distinct substances, varying in colour from blue to yellow and orange. These differ in their proportions in the chlorophyll of different plants; they have different chemical reactions; they are

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

appear at first to be source of danger to its possessor may really be a means of protection. Many showy and weak-flying butterflies have a very broad expanse of wing, as in the brilliant blue Morphos of Brazilian forests, and the large Eastern Papilios; yet these groups are tolerably plentiful. Now, specimens of these butterflies are often captured with pierced and broken wings, as if they had been seized by birds from whom they had escaped; but if the wings had been much smaller in proportion

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

group with the Heliconid . They have the same general form, structure, and habits; they possess the same protective odour, and are equally abundant in individuals, although not so varied in colour, blue and white spots on a black ground being the most general pattern. The insects which mimic these are chiefly Papilios and Diadema, a genus allied to our peacock and tortoiseshell butterflies. In tropical Africa there is a peculiar group of the genus Danais, characterised by dark-brown and bluish-white

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

often strikingly resemble them. A Longicorn beetle, P ciloderma terminale, found in Jamaica, is coloured exactly in the same way as a Lycus (one of the Malacoderms) from the same island. Eroschema poweri, a Longicorn from Australia, might certainly be taken for one of the same group, and several species from the Malay Islands are equally deceptive. In the Island of Celebes I found one of this group, having the whole body and elytra of a rich deep blue colour, with the head only orange; and in

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

common Danais chrysippus, in whose company it is often found. So in several species of South American Pieris, the males are white and black, of a similar type of colouring to our own cabbage butterflies, while the females are rich yellow and buff, spotted and marked so as exactly to resemble species of Heliconid , with which they associate in the forest. In the Malay archipelago is found a Diadema which had always been considered a male insect on account of its glossy metallic-blue tints, while

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

the breast, which is wanting in the male, as in the beautiful blue and white Haleyon diops of Ternate. In others the band is rufous in the female, as in several of the American species; while in Dacelo gaudichaudii, and others of [page] 12

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

green in the female sex. 3. Tanagers (Tanagrid ). These rival the chatterers in the brilliancy of their colours, and are even more varied. The females are generally of plain and somber hues, and always less conspicuous than the males. 4. Sugar-birds (C rebid ). The males are a beautiful blue; the females green. 5. Pheasants (Phasianid ). These include some of the most brilliant and gorgeously coloured birds in the world, such as the peacock, gold and silver pheasants, fire-backed pheasants, and many

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

Batavia during three years was three inches and eight-tenths in one hour,1 but this was quite exceptional, and even half this quantity is very unusual. The greatest rainfall recorded in twenty-four hours is seven inches and a quarter; but more than four inches in one day occurs only on two or three occasions in a year. The blue colour of the sky if probably not so intense as in many parts of the temperate zone, while the brilliancy of the moon and stars is not perceptibly greater than on our

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

birds which always accompany these roaming hordes of ants to feed upon the insects that endeavour to escape. Far more conspicuous than any of these imitative species are the large locusts, with rich crimson or blue-and-black spotted wings. Some of these are nearly a foot in expanse of wings; they fly by day, and their strong spiny legs probably serve as a protection against all the smaller birds. They cannot be said to be common; but when met with they fully satisfy our notions as to the large

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

circle about the drying foliage, while larger species fly slowly from branch to branch. Every fallen trunk is full of life. Strange mottled, and spotted, and rugose Longicorns, endless Curculios, queer-shaped Brenthid , velvety brown or steel-blue Clerid , brown or yellow or whitish click beetles (Elaters), and brilliant metallic Carabid . Close by, in the adjacent forest, a whole host of new forms are found. Elegant tiger-beetles, leaf-hunting Carabid , musk-beetles of many sorts, scarlet

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

Eastern hemisphere, and especially in the Malay Archipelago and Pacific islands, they occur in such profusion and present such singular forms and brilliant colours, that they are sure to attract attention. Here we find the extensive group of fruit-pigeons, which, in their general green colours adorned with patches and bands of purple, white, blue, or orange, almost rival the parrot tribe; while the golden-green Nicobar pigeon, the great crowned pigeons of New Guinea as large as turkeys, and the

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

upwards either together or separately. When the animal is passive the colour is dirty white, which changes to various tints of bluish, green, yellow, or brown, as more or less of either pigment is forced up and rendered visible. The animal is excessively sluggish and defenceless, and its power of changing its colour so as to harmonise with surrounding objects is essential to its safety. Here too, as with the pupa of Papilio Nireus, colours such as scarlet or blue, which do not occur in the natural

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

produced. This is believed to be the origin of many of the glossy or metallic tints of insects, as well as those of the feathers of some birds. The iridescent colours of the wings of dragon-flies are caused by the superposition of two or more transparent lamell ; while the shining blue of the purple-emperor and other butterflies, and the intensely [page] 35

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

Diadema, belonging to a distinct family, three species from the small Aru and K islands (D. deois, D. hewitsonii, and D. polymena) are all more conspicuously white-marked that their representatives in the larger islands. In the beautiful genus Cethosia, a species from the small island of Waigiou (C. cyrene) is the whitest of the genus. Protho is represented by a blue species in the continental island of Java, while those inhabiting the ancient insular groups of the Moluccas and New Guinea are

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

stomachs undigested, and, owing probably to the gentle heat and moisture to which they have been subjected, in a condition highly favourable for germination. The dry fruits or capsules containing the first two classes of seeds are rarely, if ever, conspicuously coloured, whereas the eatable fruits almost invariably acquire a bright colour as they ripen, while at the same time they become soft and often full of agreeable juices. Our red haws and hips, our black elderberries, our blue sloes and

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

. Its extreme diversities and exquisite beauties seem out of proportion to the causes that are supposed to have produced them, or the physical needs to which they minister. If we look at pure tints of red, green, blue, and yellow, they appear so absolutely contrasted and unlike each other, that it is almost impossible to believe (what we nevertheless know to be the fact) that the rays of light producing theses very distinct sensations differ only in wave-length and rate of vibration, and that

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

Homer's time he had advanced to the imperfect discrimination of red and yellow, but no further; the green of grass and foliage or the blue of the sky being never once referred to. These curious facts cannot, however, be held to prove so recent an origin for colour-sensations as they would at first sight appear to do, because we have seen that both flowers and fruits have become diversely coloured in adaptation to the visual powers of insects, birds, and mammals. Red being a very common colour

A334    Book:     Poulton, Edward Bagnall. 1896. Charles Darwin and the theory of natural selection. London: Cassell & Co.   Text   Image

Lives and Brave Deeds. By F. J. CROSS. Illustrated. Limp cloth, 1s. Cloth gilt, 2s. Good Morning! Good Night! By F. J. CROSS. Illustrated. Limp cloth, 1s., or cloth boards, gilt lettered, 2s. Five Stars in a Little Pool. By EDITH CARRINGTON. Illustrated. 3s. 6d. Merry Girls of England. By L. T. MEADE. 3s. 6d. Beyond the Blue Mountains. By L. T. MEADE. 5s. The Peep of Day. Cassell's Illustrated Edition. 2s. 6d. A Book of Merry Tales. By MAGGIE BROWNE, SHEILA, ISABEL WILSON, and C. L. MAT AUX

F2113    Book contribution:     Darwin, C. R. 1896. [Recollections of Darwin]. In E. R. Lankester. 'Charles Robert Darwin'. In C. D. Warner ed. Library of the world's best literature ancient and modern. New York: R. S. Peale & J. A. Hill, vol. 2, pp. 4385-4393.   Text   PDF

leading its blue stream of ice, overhanging the sea in a bold precipice - a lagoon island raised by the reef-building corals-an active volcano-and the overwhelming effects of a violent earthquake. These latter phenomena perhaps possess for me a peculiar interest, from their intimate connection with the geological structure of the world. The earthquake, however, must be to every one a most impressivP. event: the earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity, has oscillated like

F310    Book:     Darwin, C. R. 1902. Observations géologiques sur les iles volcaniques: explorées par l'expédition du "Beagle" et notes sure la géologie de l'Australie et du Cap de Bonne-Espérance. Trans. by A. F. Renard. Paris: C. Reinwald.   Text   Image   PDF

. Je ne veux pas affirmer que ce fragment (constituant un cas isol , ma connaissance au moins) ait t originairement d pos l' tat de couche, comme le schiste des Blue Mountains, entre les strates du gneiss porphyrique, avant qu'elles aient subile m tamorphisme; mais il existe entre les deux cas une analogie suffisante pour rendre cette explication plausible. Stratification de l'escarpement. Les couches des Blue Mountains paraissent horizontales premi re vue, mais elles ont probablement un

F310    Book:     Darwin, C. R. 1902. Observations géologiques sur les iles volcaniques: explorées par l'expédition du "Beagle" et notes sure la géologie de l'Australie et du Cap de Bonne-Espérance. Trans. by A. F. Renard. Paris: C. Reinwald.   Text   Image   PDF

de plus de 40 ; chacun sait combien une pente semblable para trait escarp e sur terre. Si des bancs de ce genre taient soulev s, ilsauraient probablement la m me forme ext rieure, peu pr s, que le plateau des Blue Mountains l'endroit o il se termine brusquement au bord de la rivi re Nepean. Stratification entrecrois e. Dans la r gion c ti re basse et dans les Blue Mountains, les couches de gr s sont souvent coup es par de petits lits obliques leur direction, qui s'inclinent en divers sens souvent

F310    Book:     Darwin, C. R. 1902. Observations géologiques sur les iles volcaniques: explorées par l'expédition du "Beagle" et notes sure la géologie de l'Australie et du Cap de Bonne-Espérance. Trans. by A. F. Renard. Paris: C. Reinwald.   Text   Image   PDF

trapp. Pr s des Downs de Bathurst je traversai une grande tendue de pays constitu e par des phyllades argileux luisants et d'un brun p le, dont les feuillets alt r s couraient du nord au sud. Je mentionne ce fait parce que le capitaine King m'a rapport qu'aux environs du lac Georges, une centaine de milles au sud, les micaschistes s' tendent du nord au sud d'une mani re si constante que les habitants utilisent cette particularit pour se guider dans les for ts. Le gr s des Blue Mountains offre

F1548.1    Book:     Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1   Text   Image   PDF

March 25th [1844?]. The first period of vegetation, and the banks are clothed with pale-blue violets to an extent I have never seen equalled, and with primroses. A few days later some of the copses were beautifully enlivened by Ranunculus auricomus, wood anemones, and a white Stellaria. Again, subsequently, large areas were brilliantly blue with bluebells. The flowers are here very beautiful, and the number of flowers; [and] the darkness of the blue of the common little Polygala almost equals

F1548.1    Book:     Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1   Text   Image   PDF

, or two tints in harmony, or a recurrent and symmetrical figure please the eye, or a single sweet note pleases the ear, I call this a sense of beauty; and with this meaning I have spoken (though I now see in not a sufficiently guarded manner) of a taste for the beautiful being the same in mankind (for all savages admire bits of bright cloth, beads, plumes, etc.) and in the lower animals. If the blue and yellow plumage of a macaw1 pleases the eye of this bird, I should say that it had a sense of

A39    Book:     Hird, D. 1903. An easy outline of evolution. London: Watts & Co.   Text   Image

ears; for it is an ascertained fact that, when one part of an animal is modified, some other parts almost always change, as it were, in sympathy with it. Mr. Darwin calls this 'correlation of growth,' and gives as instances that hairless dogs have imperfect teeth; while cats, when blue-eyed, are deaf; small feet accompany short beaks in pigeons; and other equally interesting cases. Grant, therefore, the premises: 1st. That peculiarities of every kind are more or less hereditary. 2nd. That the

F1548.1    Book:     Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1   Text   Image   PDF

expense of boxes, etc., etc. At this present minute we are at anchor in the mouth of the river, and such a strange scene as it is. Everything is in flames-the sky with lightning, the water with luminous particles, and even the very masts are pointed with a blue flame. I expect great interest in scouring over the plains of Monte Video, yet I look back with regret to the Tropics, that magic lure to all naturalists. The delight of sitting on a decaying trunk amidst the quiet gloom of the forest is

F1548.1    Book:     Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1   Text   Image   PDF

lays much stress on inheritance being a form of unconscious memory, but how far this is part of his molecular vibration, I do not understand. His views make nothing clearer to me; but this may be my fault. No one, I presume, would doubt about molecular movements of some kind. His essay is clever and striking. If you read it (but you must not on my account), I should much like to hear your judgment, and you can return it at any time. The blue lines are Häckel's to call my attention. We have come

F1548.2    Book:     Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 2   Text   Image   PDF

stigma is ready. I am going to try whether Campanula sets seed without insect agency. Letter 591. TO J.D. HOOKER. [The following letters are given here rather than in chronological order, as bearing on the Leschenaultia problem. The latter part of Letter 591 refers to the cleistogamic flowers of Viola.] Down, May 1st [1862]. If you can screw out time, do look at the stigma of the blue Leschenaultia biloba. I have just examined a large bud with the indusium not yet closed, and it seems to me certain

F1552.2    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 2.   Text   Image   PDF

conspicuous compared with the hedges of the northern counties. March 25th [1844?]. The first period of vegetation, and the banks are clothed with pale-blue violets to an extent I have never seen equalled, and with primroses. A few days later some of the copses were beautifully enlivened by Ranunculus auricomus, wood anemones, and a white Stellaria. Again, subsequently, large areas were brilliantly blue with blue-bells. The flowers are here very beautiful, and the number of flowers; [and] the

F1552.1    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 1.   Text   Image   PDF

very dear and the milliner's bill would do your heart good to see. I have bought a sort of greenish-grey rich silk for the wedding, which I expect papa to approve of entirely, and a remarkably lovely white chip bonnet trimmed with blonde and flowers. Harriet has given me a very handsome plaid satin, a dark one, which is very gorgeous, handsomely made up with black lace; and that and my blue Paris gown, which I have only worn once, and the other blue and white sort of thing will set me up for the

F1552.1    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 1.   Text   Image   PDF

, 1824.] Will you get four fine cambrick pocket handkerchiefs and eight common ones for everyday? Then a common printed cotton gown. I do not wish to give more than 10s. for it. I should like a blue, pink or buff one. If you happen to be in a ribbon shop, will you get 3 yds. of not very handsome ribbon for a turned straw bonnet. I am quite indifferent about the colour, except not straw colour. Do not give yourself any trouble about the rib, for I can get it very well here. Goodbye, my dear

F1552.2    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 2.   Text   Image   PDF

from 130 to 140. I am be-blue-deviled. I am daily growing very old, very very cold and I daresay very sly1. I will give you statistics of time spent on my Coral volume, not including all the work on board the Beagle. I commenced it 3 years and 7 months ago, and have done scarcely anything besides. I have actually spent 20 months out of this period on it! and nearly all the remainder sickness and visiting!!! Catty2 stops till Saturday; notwithstanding all my boasting of not caring for solitude, I

F1552.2    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 2.   Text   Image   PDF

quite forgotten how pleasant it was to feel brisk and well all day. St Jean, which was her ideal of beauty, is a little fishing village in a bay to the west of Nice. I can remember the scene now on an evening of unusual splendour the little harbour with the gorgeous lateen sails of yellow and red, the rocks going sheer down into the crystal-clear blue sea, framed in with the great mountains of Nice. My friend and I had to wander about the tiny village in the dusk, trying to find a lodging for

F1552.2    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 2.   Text   Image   PDF

. 20, 1890. Horace and Eras came in the morning. Eras offered, on my asking him about his bicycle, to shew me how he could perform, and he looked so pretty in his velvet suit careering over the lawn and turning quite well. G. and Maud came to dinner, she in a handsome new braided gown, blue and grey, made at Ryde. They had a merry discussion about a new plan of Maud's about servants. You are to have a job-master who engages to furnish you with your maids for the day, changing them or giving the

F1552.1    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 1.   Text   Image   PDF

, worked one in blue and the other in pink, and the second dress was from Mrs Smith's old Indian stores, a silver gauze. Mrs Smith has taught them everything, and they sing and dance extremely well. They are all certainly in a much happier and more desirable situation than as they were in London Madame Sismondi to her sister Mrs Josiah Wedgwood. GENEVA, January 28, 1824. It is a long time, dearest Bessy, since you have had the pleasure of paying for a letter from me, though you have had news of us

F1552.1    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 1.   Text   Image   PDF

been long enough upon the road, and that we shall think the sight of Venice will scarcely repay us for lengthening our route so much, unless we should find that it would be through a beautiful country, and that I think it cannot be. We think that Canaletto and the Panorama have made us familiar with the appearance of Venice, and besides the appearance, there is not much for such cursory travellers as we are, except some pictures. After my lamentations in my last for the want of the boasted blue

F1552.1    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 1.   Text   Image   PDF

there, and Caroline well, and your delightful tour actually begun, was great pleasure to me. You have had more beautiful weather since you departed than you have had the whole time you were here. Thursday and Friday were perfect, that rich hot blue air and the Mont Blanc snowy-white and clear, half-way up the sky, made me wish for you, made me angry you were not here or that everything looked so beautiful. My dearest children, if I was to say I did not miss you, that the house was not very empty

F1552.1    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 1.   Text   Image   PDF

dropping summer, the most beautiful autumn I ever remember to have seen. I do not exaggerate when I say I never stirred out without an ecstacy. The warm golden colours at home, the gilded snow and blue in the distance, gave such a view that every walk became a prayer. But Harriet in Italy has not had this weather. She had little sun even at Venice. We have besides had that phenomenal light after sunset which no one has explained, and which has been so bright in Italy as to give superstitious awe

F1552.1    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 1.   Text   Image   PDF

, inviting us to breakfast and a party, and coming out here to present me with a lovely copy of his poems. We met a little collection of blue ladies, H. Martineau, Mrs Austin1, Mrs Marcet, c., which is I believe quite a new line for him. Mrs Austin is much found fault with for being too aristocratic; since she has gone to Mayfair they say she only frequents parties of the highest distinction. Elizabeth appears to have given up teaching the Sunday-school this spring. I suppose there was now a regular

F1552.2    Book:     Litchfield, H. E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 2.   Text   Image   PDF

his papers and Blue books. I was out of all patience with the Speaker and the Executive, but Mrs Mulholland, who called here yesterday, said that the reticence was preconcerted in order to give them plenty of rope to hang themselves. She said Sir John [Lubbock] says he has had an unusual quantity of sleep, as most of the members disliked much more getting up early than sitting up late, and so he took that part of the duty on condition of being let off early at night. It was all systematically

A237.1    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1905. My life: A record of events and opinions. London: Chapman and Hall. vol. 1.   Text   Image   PDF

different shades of the most exquisite sky-blue of a velvety texture (Callithea sapphirina), while on the opposite side of the river was a closely allied species of an almost indigo-blue colour, and with different markings underneath. Dr. Spruce assured me that, though he had studied all the known plants of the Amazon before leaving England, he felt quite puzzled when collecting at Santarem, because almost every shrub and tree he found there proved to be a new species. We greatly enjoyed our

A237.2    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1905. My life: A record of events and opinions. London: Chapman and Hall. vol. 2.   Text   Image   PDF

Delphinium tricorne, the little blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia verna), yellow, blue, and white violets, Jeffersonia diphylla, and many other flowers strange to English eyes. During one walk I found a fine plant of Mertensia virginica in flower. But though these were wonderfully attractive to me, owing to there being so many forms of flower quite unknown in England, the actual amount of floral colour and beauty was not to be compared with our own. There was nothing to equal the sheets of bluebells

A237.1    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1905. My life: A record of events and opinions. London: Chapman and Hall. vol. 1.   Text   Image   PDF

about a quarter of a mile from the main river. As I knew it, it was a circular pond nearly a hundred feet in diameter, filled with the most crystal clear water, and very deep in the centre, where the springs were continually bubbling upward, keeping up a good stream which supplied a considerable part of the water in the New River. But its chief beauty was, that the centre was filled with great flocculent masses of green conferv , while the water in the centre appeared to have a blue tint

A237.1    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1905. My life: A record of events and opinions. London: Chapman and Hall. vol. 1.   Text   Image   PDF

all the rest of the voyage. We passed through part of the celebrated Sargasso Sea, where the surface is covered with long stretches of floating sea-weed, not brought there by storms from the distant shore, but living and growing where it is found, and supporting great numbers of small fish, crabs, mollusca, and innumerable low forms of marine life. And when we left this behind us, the exquisite blue of the water by day and the vivid phosphorescence often seen at night were a constant delight

A237.1    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1905. My life: A record of events and opinions. London: Chapman and Hall. vol. 1.   Text   Image   PDF

varied. The ground colour is very frequently black, on which appear bands, spots, or large patches of brilliant colours pale or golden yellow, rich crimsons or gorgeous metallic blues and greens, which colours sometimes spread over nearly the whole wing surface. Some are thickly speckled with golden green dots and adorned with large patches of intense metallic green or azure blue, others are simply black and white in a great variety of patterns many very striking and beautiful, while others

A237.2    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1905. My life: A record of events and opinions. London: Chapman and Hall. vol. 2.   Text   Image   PDF

among whom were the late Miss Owen, Mr. H. J. Elwes, Miss Jekyll, and Sir W. T. Thistelton Dyer of Kew, and many others. Among the plants which I grew here with some success were the fine blue, purple, and yellow Himalayan poppies, the curious Periploca gr ca, which produced masses of its strange blossoms, the beautiful Akebia quinata with its wire-coloured flowers, a very large Solanum crispus, and the strange Chilian climber, Mutisia decurrens, which we called the glory dandelion, from its

A237.1    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1905. My life: A record of events and opinions. London: Chapman and Hall. vol. 1.   Text   Image   PDF

. The bedgown is invariably formed of what they call flannel, which is a stuff formed by a mixture of wool, cotton, and sometimes a little silk. It is often striped black or dark blue, or brown and white, with alternate broad and narrow stripes, or red and black, but more frequently a plaid of several colours, the red and black being wool, the white or blue cotton, and often a narrow yellow stripe of silk, made in plaid patterns of every variety of size and colour. The apron is almost always

A237.1    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1905. My life: A record of events and opinions. London: Chapman and Hall. vol. 1.   Text   Image   PDF

too long a day, But now I often wish the night Had borne my breath away, always brought to my mind the memory of the little blue-papered room at Usk, which faced somewhat east of south, and into which, therefore, the sun did come peeping in each morn at least, during a large portion of the year. [page] 2