Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.
Mr. A. R. Wallace, so well known for his natural-history researchesin the valley of the Amazons, and for the extensive andvaluable collections sent home by him from that portion of SouthAmerica, has now turned his attention to the eastern world, andis actively investigating the natural history of the East IndianIslands, after having spent some months on the Malay Peninsula.A large portion of Mr. Wallace’s entomological collections passinto my hands, and being desirous of making his labours scientificallyuseful, I have requested Mr. F. Walker, who has such anintimate knowledge of the insects belonging to the order Diptera, todraw up the following catalogue of the dipterous insects discoveredby Mr. Wallace at Singapore and Malacca. My object in sodoing is to establish a kind of starting-point for tracing hereafter,when all Mr. Wallace’s collections shall have come to hand, thegeographical distribution of the Diptera in the very interestingportion of the globe which Mr. Wallace is now investigating withsuch indefatigable zeal. Singapore and Malacca, at the extremityof the Malay Peninsula, are well placed for carrying out the purposeI have in view, being in connexion northwards through the5Burman Empire with the expanded continent of Asia, and southwardsin close approximation with that archipelago of splendidislands which run in a chain to the north coast of Australia, andsend off a branch northwards through the Philippine Islands tothe coast of China, touching there again the mainland of Asia.The present catalogue will be followed very shortly by one detailingthe species of Diptera discovered in Borneo, the materials forwhich are now nearly all in this country, and other catalogues willfollow until Mr. Wallace’s discoveries in the Diptera are exhausted.That Mr. Wallace will be able to visit all the islands of the IndianArchipelago is not to be expected; but still, his plan of exploringthose which have been but little examined in a natural-history pointof view, will open up a large amount of information, which, whencombined with the labours of other naturalists who have beenworking in the same districts, will give sufficient facts for layingdown some laws on the geographical distribution of the insectsbelonging to the Order which forms the subject of the followingcatalogue. The spec