Bionomics. 189 



the division of labour among 1 the Termites, in short, 

 with the detailed working of natural selection. 



Philosophically a Monist, biologically a Darwinian, 

 he was above all an observer, distrusting theories, and 

 always sounding the note of objectivity, as we would 

 expect from one who lived and thought looking nature 

 straight in the face. 



Until biology becomes as different from what it is 

 now, as the biology of to-day differs from that of the 

 pre-Darwinian era, Fritz Muller will be remembered for 

 his Fur Darwm, and for his studies in the bionomics of 

 Brazil, i.e. for his detailed application of Darwinism, 

 on the one hand, to the class of Crustaceans, and, on 

 the other hand, to the facts of life in the primitive 

 Brazilian forest. Apart from the Recapitulation Doc- 

 trine, which is at present so much in the fire that 

 judgment must be suspended, Fritz Muller made two 

 personal contributions which are of great importance. 

 The one is his modification of the theory of mimicry; the 

 other is a contribution to the theory of variation, which 

 is often referred to under the title of " Muller' s law". 



To abstract the plant or animal from the particular 

 milieu in which it lives is like trying to understand man 

 apart from society. 



On the one hand, we see the organism's action upon 

 its environment, the nitrifying, sulphur- organisms 

 making, decomposing work of bacteria; the and their 

 weathering caused by lichens; the protective Envirc 

 action of littoral sea- weeds, bog -mosses, grass, and 

 trees; the accumulations of peat and coal; or, among 

 animals, the slow formation of ooze on the floor of the 

 sea, the making of coral-reefs, the agricultural work 

 of earth-worms and termites, the destructive effects of 

 boring animals; and so on through a long list illus- 

 trating the hand of life upon the earth. As distinctively 

 modern, we might cite the researches of Darwin on 

 earth-worms, of Drummond on termites, of Darwin, 

 Murray, and others on coral-reefs. Very characteristic, 

 too, are the numerous researches by which bacteriolo- 

 gists have convinced us that it is no metaphor to speak 

 of the living earth. 



