Wallace's emotions on discovering such marvels must surely be echoed by all of us who follow him. This is what he wrote: "I thought of the long ages … - David Attenborough

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Wallace's emotions on discovering such marvels must surely be echoed by all of us who follow him. This is what he wrote: "I thought of the long ages of the past during which the successive generations of these things of beauty had run their course. Year by year being born and living and dying amid these dark gloomy woods with no intelligent eye to gaze upon their loveliness, to all appearances such a wanton waste of beauty. It seems sad that on the one hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things were not made for man, many of them have no relation to him, their happiness and enjoyment's, their loves and hates, their struggles for existence, their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be immediately related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone."