Facts and Arguments for Darwin

Known for developing the concept of Muellerian mimicry, whereby poisonous species with a common predator display similar warning signals, the naturalist Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Mueller (1821-97) spent most of his working life in Brazil. Having emigrated from Germany, owing partly to his radical atheism, he became a strong early supporter of Darwinism. Drawing on his studies of crustaceans, he originally published this work in German as Fuer Darwin (1864), and sent the great naturalist a copy. Mueller became a regular correspondent, and Darwin supported the translation of Mueller's work, firstly for his personal use and also in the published 1869 version that is reissued here, rendered into English by the naturalist William Sweetland Dallas (1824-90), with several updates by Mueller. Using case studies of crustaceans to provide evidence for certain aspects of Darwinian theory, Mueller draws up evolutionary classifications of the various species examined.