Chapter Summary Of Alfred Wallace's Into The Jungle

Chapter two of Into the Jungle introduces Alfred Wallace in the Rio dos Uaupes in the Amazon, where he had been staying for about four years discovering and collecting new animals, plants, and specimen. However, on his journey back to England in 1852, a tragic fire on the ship led him to lose almost all of his discoveries. Even though he was able to salvage some of his findings and had even been able to sell some of his specimens because of his agent Samuel Stevens, he still had an urge to go discover and explore more animals and regions; this led him to the Malay Archipelago, which was a group of islands. He landed in Singapore and had the opportunity to hunt for insects and explore the region even though it was a treacherous area, full of …show more content…
However, there were different species of birds in Bali, Borneo, and the western islands of the archipelago compared to Lombok, New Guinea, and the eastern islands. On the western islands, there were white cockatoos, different species of honeysuckers and even megapods. On the eastern islands, there were woodpeckers, weavers, starlings and many other birds that were not present on the western islands. Even though both regions had different types of birds, the area shows the great population of birds in each region. Also on the eastern islands, there were many monkeys, tigers, and rhinoceros, while on the eastern islands there were many marsupials such as kangaroos and cuscus. These differences explain the concept of how a specific environment might be well suited for one type of animal and explain how that specific animal adapted to the environment they were placed on. When Wallace compared New Guinea and Borneo, their physical conditions and environments were very similar; however, the bird population in each region were completely different. This shows that these different species of birds had to adapt to its environment and how much environment plays on the survival of a