In Müllerian mimicry an advantage is gained when unpalatable species resemble each other, especially when the predator has a good memory for colour (as birds, for instance, do have). Thus one trial may work to dissuade a bird from several species of butterfly which all fly the same 'flag'. Brazilian butterflies provide some of the most extraordinary examples of mimicry, and Müller, Bates and Wallace all had lengthy experience of this. All three traveller-naturalists believed firmly that such systems of mimicry could only come about by means of natural selection, and all of them wrote about it.
One of his favourite topics was the life habits of the stingless honey-bees "Melipoma" and "Trigona". They are protected by a venom which they squirt when disturbed. The local name for them is Cagafogo (fire-shitter).
Another discovery was the dimorphism in midges of the family Blepharicereidae. There are two female forms with different mouth-parts: one sucks blood, the other takes nectar, as does the male. To prove the point to skeptics, he sexed the flies carefully, and reared them from pupae.
By studying living termites Müller was able to correct many errors to be found in text-books. For example, their caste system is organised quite differently from ants, since the castes contain members of both sexes, whereas in hymenoptera the castes are unisexual and the males are haploid. Termites are placed in a different order from ants, the Isoptera.
Much of Müller's botany was stimulated by the series of botanical works published by Darwin in the years after the "Origin". Müller made contributions in all these fields. After Darwin's "Fertilisation of Orchids" (1862) he spent years of work on orchids, sending observations to his brother Hermann and to Darwin. Darwin used some of this work in his second edition of 1877, and Hermann later became famous for his work on pollination. On "Climbing plants" (Darwin 1867) Müller sent a letter to Darwin listing 40 genera of climbing plants classified by their method of climbing. The next few months saw more observations, which Darwin had translated and published as Müller's first paper in English.
Müller became a strong supporter of Darwin. He wrote "Für Darwin" in 1864, arguing that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was correct, and that Brazilian crustaceans and their larvae could be affected by adaptations at any growth stage. This was translated into English as "Facts and Arguments for Darwin" in 1869. If Müller had a weakness it was that his writing was much less readable than that of Darwin or Wallace; both the German and English editions are hard reading indeed, which has limited the appreciation of this significant book.
Extensive correspondence exists between Müller and Darwin, and Müller also corresponded with Alexander Agassiz, Ernst Krause, and Ernst Haeckel.
John Hope, 1st Marquess of Linlithgow
John Adrian Louis Hope, 1st Marquess of Linlithgow KT, GCMG, GCVO, PC (25 September 1860 - 29 February 1908), known as Viscount Aithrie before 1873 and as The 7th Earl of Hopetoun between 1873 and 1902, was the first Governor-General of Australia.
Hope was born at South Queensferry, West Lothian in Scotland. He was the eldest son of the 6th Earl of Hopetoun. He was educated at Eton College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he passed in 1879 but did not join the Army. He looked after the family houses and lands. In 1883 he became active in the House of Lords. He served as a Lord in Waiting from June 1885 to January 1886 and August 1886 to August 1889.
In 1889 he was made the Governor of Victoria, where he served until 1895. He went back to the United Kingdom and was made a privy councillor. He became the Paymaster-General from 1895 to 1898, and then Lord Chamberlain until 1900. The Australian colonies joined together to form the Commonwealth of Australia from 1 January 1901. Hopetoun was well liked in Victoria and he knew all the important Australian politicians. This made him a good choice to be the first Governor-General of the Commonwealth, and he was appointed in July 1900. In India, on his way to Australia, he got typhoid fever and his wife got malaria. They arrived in December 1900.
Hopetoun's first job was to choose a Prime Minister to form a government, which would start on 1 January 1901. The first elections were not going to be held until March, so he could not choose the leader of the biggest political party in the House of Representatives. Instead, he asked Sir William Lyne, the Premier of the largest state, New South Wales, to be Prime Minister
While this was a reasonable choice, Lyne had opposed federation and was unpopular with the leading federalist politicians. Alfred Deakin and other important politicians told Hopetoun they would not work with Lyne. Hopetoun then asked Edmund Barton, the leader of the federal movement and the man everybody thought should be the Prime Minister. This became known as the "Hopetoun Blunder".
There were soon more problems. Hopetoun had brought his own Official Secretary, Captain Edward William Wallington. The Australians did not want an Englishman in charge of official business. They also did not like the regal pomp and ceremony that Hopetoun used in his position, and the money that this cost. He acted as if ruled Australia with the Prime Minister. This was not what writers of the Constitution had wanted.
Hopetoun became friends with Melbourne anarchist and union pioneer, John 'Chummy' Fleming. In May 1901, Fleming protested against unemployment in Melbourne by rushing onto the Prince's Bridge to stop the Governor-General's carriage. Hopetoun listened to Fleming talk about the problems of the unemployed. According to some reports, Hopetoun made the government speed up work projects.
Finally, there was a problem with how much the Governor-General should be paid to have a house in both Sydney, the largest city, and Melbourne, the home of the Australian government. The Commonwealth and Victorian parliaments would not pay Hopetoun more money. Hopetoun resigned in May 1902. He and his family left Australia (from Brisbane) on 17 July 1902. He knew he had failed in a historic role. He was created 1st Marquess of Linlithgow on 27 October 1902, while he still the Governor-General. His term officially ended on 9 January 1903. He was made Secretary for Scotland in 1905.
He died suddenly on 29 February 1908, in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France.
On 18 October 1886 he married Hersey Everleigh-de-Moleyns, daughter of the fourth Baron Ventry. They had four children;
His son Victor, the 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow became the longest-serving Viceroy of India 1936-43, a job he had always wanted. His grandson Lord Glendevon married the daughter of the English novelist W. Somerset Maugham.
Henry Walter Bates
Henry Walter Bates (Leicester, 8 February 1825 – London, 16 February 1892) was an English biologist who explored the Amazon Rainforest.
This naturalist and explorer gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. Batesian mimicry is named after him. He was most famous for his expedition to the Amazon River basin with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1848. He spent 11 years in the rain forest.
When Bates arrived home in 1859, he had sent back over 14,000 species (mostly of insects) of which 8,000 were new to science.
In 1847 Wallace and Bates discussed the idea of an expedition to the Amazon basin. The plan was to defray expenses by sending specimens back to London, where an agent would sell them for a commission. Also, for the travellers to ""gather facts towards solving the problem of the origin of species"", as Wallace put it in a letter to Bates.
The two friends, who were both by now experienced amateur entomologists, met in London to prepare themselves by viewing South American plants and animals in the main collections.