This book is still one of the great classics of natural history and travel. It contains Wallace's observations of the different native people inhabiting the islands: descriptions of the island groupings, such as the Indo-Malays, the Timors, the Celebes, the Moluccas, and the Papuan Islands, and his accounts of the abundant and strange animals, startling birds, and varied insects, that flourished there. His basic thesis that the western half of the archipelago is Indian in animal life, whereas the eastern is Australian, is still accepted, and the line separating the two is called the Wallace Line in his honour. This is an unabridged reprint of the 1922 edition, with 62 drawings and maps. There are three appendices, one on cranial measurements, and the other two on native languages and vocabulary.