between 1859–1861 on the nests and eggs of Javanese birds so impressed Hermann Schlegel, director of the museum at Leiden, that he invited Bernstein to work for the museum to collect zoological items. Bernstein was duly appointed in March 1859 as official collector for the Dutch government, and in this new role he began to collect a wide range of both flora (now in the herbaria of Wrocław) and fauna. In November 1860 he got permission from the Governor-Generals Charles Ferdinand Pahud and his successor Ludolph Anne Jan Wilt Sloet van de Beele; they granted him to travel to New Guinea. He was the first researcher in this region after the departure from Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn and the death of Carl Anton Ludwig Maria Schwaner in 1851. On 7 November Bernstein departed for the Moluccas, arriving a month later at Ternate (Halmahera), where he collected birds for eight days and set up “home”. Bernstein’s various expeditions in Indonesia Analysing the specimens present within the museum at Leiden, Bernstein made no less than nine separate trips from Ternate. Ternate was used as a base for rebuilding boats, writing letters (mostly to Hermann Schlegel) and sending specimens to Leiden. Schlegel was always urging Bernstein to keep ahead of Alfred Russel Wallace, who was also collecting at that time in the area. The rivalry was strong but gentlemanly. On 6 February 1861 Wallace wrote in a letter from Dili (Timor): The Dutch have just sent out a collector for the Leyden Museum to the Moluccas. He is now at Ternate, and goes to spend two years in Gilolo and Batchian, and then to N. Guinea. He will, of course (having four hunters constantly employed, and not being obliged to make his collecting pay expenses), do much more than I have been able to do; but I think I have got the cream of it all. His name is Bernstein; he has resided long in Java, as doctor at a Sanatorium, and tells me he has already sent large collections to Leyden, including the nests and eggs of more than a hundred species of birds! Are these yet arranged and exhibited? They must form a most interesting collection. He indicates in this letter that he had met Bernstein, and in a later one he confirmed this. At various times Bernstein is mentioned in Wallace’s Malay Archipelago (for example in the chapter on Gilolo—now Halmahera—in