T. W. Wood was an English zoological illustrator responsible for the accurate drawings in major nineteenth century works of natural history including Darwin's The Descent of Man and Wallace's The Malay Archipelago. He studied the courtship display behaviour of pheasants, observing them closely and publishing the first description of the double-banded argus pheasant. He illustrated many books, often of birds but also of moths and mammals.
"Racquet-tailed Kingfisher" in The Malay Archipelago
"White-headed Woodpecker", coloured wood-engraving by Benjamin Fawcett, drawing by T.W. Wood
Shooting birds of paradise, from The Malay Archipelago
The Malay Archipelago is a book by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace which chronicles his scientific exploration, during the eight-year period 1854 to 1862, of the southern portion of the Malay Archipelago including Malaysia, Singapore, the islands of Indonesia, then known as the Dutch East Indies, and the island of New Guinea. It was published in two volumes in 1869, delayed by Wallace's ill health and the work needed to describe the many specimens he brought home. The book went through ten editions in the nineteenth century; it has been reprinted many times since, and has been translated into at least twelve languages.
Title page of first edition
Treeps, Hurstpierpoint, the house where The Malay Archipelago was largely written
"The Great Shielded Grasshopper" drawn and signed by E. W. Robinson
"Remarkable Beetles Found at Simunjon, Borneo: Neocerambyx æneas, Cladognathus tarandus, Diurus furcellatus, Ectatorhinus Wallacei, Megacriodes Saundersii, Cyriopalpus Wallacei"
