"A record of adventures, habits of animals, sketches of Brazilian and Indian life, and aspects of nature under the equator, during eleven years of travel ". Popular edition. Small octavo, pp x, 394, + 10 page publisher's catalogue. Slightly age-toned internally, lacking a corner on the front endpaper, but otherwise clean firm and tight. Original red publisher's binding, faded, and with slight wear marking and abrasions, the spine darkened and with fraying to the head and tail. [Bates and Alfred Russell Wallace sailed from Liverpool in April 1848, arriving in Pará (now Belém) at the end of May. For the first year they settled in a villa near the city, collecting birds and insects. After that they agreed to collect independently, Bates travelling to Cametá on the Tocantins River. He then moved up the Amazon, to Óbidos, Manaus and finally to the Upper Amazon (Solimões). Tefé was his base camp for four and a half years. His health eventually deteriorated and he returned to Britain in 1859, after spending nearly eleven years on the Amazon. He sent his collection on three different ships to avoid the fate of his colleague Wallace, who lost his entire collection when his ship sank. Bates spent the next three years writing his account of the trip, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, widely regarded as one of the finest reports of natural history travels. ]