Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) was a British biologist and explorer whose theories of evolution, arrived at independently, caused Darwin to allow their famous joint paper to go forward to the Linnean Society in 1858. Considered the nineteenth century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animals, Wallace carried out extensive fieldwork in areas as diverse as North and South America, Africa, China, India and Australia to document the habitats, breeding, migration and feeding behaviour of thousands of species around the world, and the influence of environmental conditions on their survival. First published in 1876, this two-volume set presents Wallace's findings, and represents a landmark in the study of zoology, evolutionary biology and palaeontology which remains relevant to scholars in these fields today. Volume 1 focuses on the classification of species, migration processes, factors influencing extinction, and the characteristics of a range of zoological regions worldwide.