article_snippet.sent: NATURALISTS IN PARADISE: WALLACE , Henry Bates AND SPRUCE IN THE AMAZON .
article_snippet.sent: Even after being attacked by a particularly nasty species of wasp, Spruce wrote of his admiration for 'Spruce beauty, ingenuity and heroic ferocity'.
article_snippet.sent: Naturalist Richard Spruce .
article_snippet.sent: The young Wallace loved nothing better than to curl up with the poetry of Milton or Dante - until The young Wallace discovered the joys of plant classification.
article_snippet.sent: Aged 17, Naturalist Richard Spruce carefully listed 403 species of plants near The young Wallace Yorkshire home, before surrendering to the seemingly irresistible appeal of mosses and liverworts.
article_snippet.sent: Four years later, still in Wallace and Bates early 20s and having found a London agent to sell any specimens Wallace and Bates sent back, Wallace and Bates sailed to Brazil, which was already recognised as an ecological treasure-trove.
article_snippet.sent: A year later, Naturalist Richard Spruce arrived to begin Wallace own Amazon adventures, bumping into the others only occasionally.
article_snippet.sent: Wallace and Bates were also among people either puzzled or amused that Wallace and Bates had come so far just to collect some plants and animals.
article_snippet.sent: Then there was the equally tricky business of preserving the specimens in wet jungle conditions until the specimens could be packaged up for the journey to London.
article_snippet.sent: Bates alone managed to send 14,712 species, with the number of specimens naturally far higher.
article_snippet.sent: Meanwhile, back in Amazonia, Bates and Spruce were still collecting away...