"This is why I have the best job in the world," exclaimed Cynthia Sagers, a program manager from the National Science Foundation, when given the opportunity to see, smell, and even touch the very specimens that British naturalist and field biologist Alfred Russel Wallace collected nearly two centuries ago.

The bugs, butterflies, moths, shells, botanical samples and personal mementoes are a treasure trove of evidence not only of the man himself — an explorer, collector and scientist who was a contemporary of Charles Darwin — but also of his scientific theories on geographical biodiversity and natural selection that were foundational to many fields of modern biological science....