Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/319

* WALKING-STICK. 263 WALLACE. silized aniliprj in the Tertinry strata in North America, and in the Carboniferous rocks there oc- cur remains of fjigantic insects which may pos- sibly be connected with this group. WALKtfRE, val-ku'rr, Die. An opera by Wagner. f>ce Ring of the Nihelunoen; Wag- NEK, Richard. WALKYRIES. See Yalkykies. WALLABY (Australian name). A local name fur tlic small kangaroos of Australia, espe- cially of the genera Petrogale (roek-kangaroos) and Halmaturus. The species of Haliiiaturus have no hair on the mullle and live in scrub- by country. Some are of large size, but the true wallabies are small. One of the most strik- ing is the black-gloved wallaby {Ilaltnaturus manicatus), of which Gould said that if its fore feet and the tips of its ears had been carefully dipped in ink they could not be any blacker, nor could the coloring terminate any more abruptly. The name is not restricted to these genera, how- ever ; thus Parry's wallaby, of the mountains of Queensland, is a large species of the kangaroo genus proper — Macropus. See Plate of Kanga- KOOS. WAL'LACE, Alfred Russel (1822—). An English naturalist and philosopher. He was torn January 8, 1822, al Usk, in Monmouthshire, and fitted himself for work as a surveyor and engineer. He then became English master in the Collegiate School at Leicester. Wallace, already interested in botany and insects, was greatly aroused by Darwin's Journal, and other books of the period. Early in 1848 he sailed with H. W. Bates ( q.v. ) for Para. In 18.50 Bates and Wallace parted company, finding it more convenient to explore separate districts and collect independ- ently, Wallace taking the iKu-thern parts and tributaries of the Amazon. He returned to Eng- land in 1852, but his collection and notes were lost by shipwreck. Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro (1853) is a popular account of these experiences. In 1854 Wallace went to the Ma- layan Archipelago, where he traveled and col- lected for eight years from ilalacca to New Guinea. He studied the ethnological relations of this island world, collected the vocabularies of 75 native dialects, and made numerous meas- urements of the aboriginal crania, besides study- ing the habits of the orang-outang and the birds of paradise. Wallace during his residence at Sarawak wrote in February, 1S55. an essay On the Laic ^yhich Has lieyulated Ihc Introduction of Xew Species, which was published in September, 1855, though he remarks that ten years previous the idea of such a law suggested itself to him. But beyond vaguely stating that in the method of peopling of the earth the process was gradiial. and that no new creation was formed widely differ- ing from anything before existing, the essay only shows that its author w'os keenly alive to a search for the causes of evolution. But light was shed upon the subject by Malthus's Essay on Population ; and it Was by reading this sugges- tion that Wallace, like Darw'in, hit upon the doc- trine of natural selection (q.v.). In February, 1858, while at Ternate, he wrote his famoiis essay On the Tendeney of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type. It led to the publication of Darwin's preliminary essay, and the two paj)ers were pul)lished in the proceed- ings of the Linna'an Society of London for Au- gust, 1858. In this essay Wallace discusses the nature of varieties, the struggle for existence, the law of perpetuation of si)ccies, useful and useless variations, and tlu' ])artial reversion of domesticated varieties, although he does not use the term 'natural selection,' which we owe to Darwin. Wallace did no work in the anatomy, embryology, and morphology of animals, and but little systematic work, but his contributions to bionomics, or the relations of animal life to the world around it, were numerous and importnut. To Wallaee we are indebted for a comprehen- sive and epoch-making work in zoiigeography. Strongly inclined to speculation, he gave in his Tropical Xaturc (1878) and Island Life (ISSO) many valuable suggestions regarding the ell'i'et of geological and climatic changes on animal life. His simple and uncritical nature is shown by the interest he took in spiritualism, and he was apparently, for a w^hile, at least, a believer in miracles and spirit-manifestations. This ten- dency led him to deny that man's moral and spiritual nature has, like his physical being, been evolved by a natural process. He also became a student of sociology and was president of the Land Nationalization Society, holding that the State should own the soil. These views did not enhance his reputation, which will mainly rest on his discovery of natural selection. His "native amiability and high-mindedness of character were conspicuously .shown by his rare self-abne- gation of any claim for the discovery of natural selection, and by his uninterrupted friendship with Darwin. During the latter part of his life Wallace lived in a rural part of England enjoy- ing a very moderate pension from the Govern- ment, bestowed in recognition of his work in natural history. Wallace's most important works, and those containing his theoretical views, are, besides the 1858 essay, his epoch-making paper "On the Phenpmenon of Variation and Geographical Dis- tribution as Illustrated by the Papilionidte of the Malayan Region," published in the Transac- tions of the Linnwan Society of London (1865) ; Contributions to the Theory of Xainral Selection (1870); The Malay Archipelago (ISfiO); The Geograpliical Distrihution of Animals (1876); Tropical Nature (1878); Island Life (1880); Darwinism (1889). Other works are: Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (1875); Land Na- tionalization: Its Necessity and Its Aims (1882) ; Australia and New Zealand (1893); Studies, Scientific and Social ( 1900) ; Man's Place in the Vnicerse (1903). WALLACE, HoR.^.CE Bixxbt (1817-51). An American jurist. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1817, educated at the universities of Permsyl- vania and Princeton, graduating in 1835; stud- ied both medicine and law. but never engaged in active practice. With .Tudge Ilare he edited American Leading Cases; Smith's Leading Cases;. White and Tudor's Leading Ca.ies in Equity; British Crown Cases Reserved; published a novel, Stanley, or Recollections of a Man of the World, and several works of travel. In 1851 he was afflicted with a brain disease and committed suicide.