WALLACE, Alfred Russel Tropical Nature, and other essays. Macmillan & Co. 1878.
8vo. Original green cloth, black stamped rules to sides, gilt lettering to spine; pp. xiii + [3] + 356 + [1, ads.], 1 chart, 1 figure in text; a little foxing to prelims and edges, very good. Provenance: title page with ink stamp of Stonyhurst College, the Jesuit school in Lancashire.
First edition. This wide-ranging collection of pieces concentrates largely upon tropical environments, including thorough surveys of climate, flora and fauna and with a special chapter on hummingbirds. There are also important chapters on the antiquity of man and on Wallace's special interests in sexual selection, coloration and the distribution of animals, all of which build on and feed into his full-length works on these subjects. The Geographical Distribution of Animals had been published in 1876, with Island Life to come in 1880 - this book can be seen as the link between those two great works.
#2121923