He was no mere "trudger" over new lands. Where those before him, and even many after him, have been able to see only sterile objects, his discerning eyes perceived everywhere a meaning in the varying modes of organic life, and in response to his sympathetic mind Nature revealed to him more of her multitudinous secrets than to most others. Wallace's Amazonian travels were far from unfruitful, in spite of the irreparable loss he sustained in the burning of his notes and the bulk of his collections in the vessel by which he was returning home; but it was in the Malay Archipelago that his most celebrated years of investigation were passed, which marked him as one of the greatest naturalists of our time. As a methodical natural history collector--which is "the best sport in the world" according to Darwin--he has never been surpassed; and few naturalists, if any, have ever brought together more enormous collections than he. The mere statement, taken from his "Malay Archipelago," of the number of his captures in the Archipelago in six years of actual collecting, exceeding 125,000 specimens--a number greater than the entire contents of many large museums--still causes amazement. The value of a collection, however, depends on the full and accurate information attached to each specimen, and from this point of view only a few collections, including Darwin's and Bates's, have possessed the great scientific value of his.