i88 The Science of Life. 



Fritz Muller's father, grandfather, and great-grand- 

 father had been pastors, but there was a strongly- 

 marked scientific bent in the family, which cropped out 

 also in Fritz's younger brother Hermann, famous for 

 his work on the fertilization of flowers. It is also in- 

 teresting to notice that Fritz Miiller was one of the 

 many students who sat at the feet of Johannes Miiller 

 and were inspired by his genius. 



His conscientious scruples against taking the Pro- 

 testant oath, necessary in order to become an " Ober- 

 lehrer", led him to emigrate to Brazil in 1852, and he 

 never returned. He settled for four years on the out- 

 skirts of the primitive forest in the valley of Garcia, 

 observing and collecting indefatigably. Then followed 

 twelve years at the Lyceum of Desterro [literally "ban- 

 ishment"] in the island of Santa Catharina, off the 

 coast of Brazil, where he investigated the marine fauna 

 and wrote his famous Facts for Darwin. Ousted from 

 this post by Jesuit influence (1867) he retired to Blu- 

 menau, and spent twenty years in what might be called 

 scientific Walden-life. The Emperor of Brazil, Don 

 Pedro II., appointed him (1876) naturalist to the na- 

 tional museum at Rio Janeiro, where many of his col- 

 lections had been sent, but even this modest post was 

 soon lost (1884) by the short-sighted tyranny of a 

 political reaction. Offers of pecuniary aid from his 

 admirers in Germany were gratefully but firmly de- 

 clined, and the "prince of observers", as Darwin called 

 him, resolutely adhered to his plain living and high 

 thinking. From his hermitage he continued to send 

 home the records of his observations, which remain a 

 lasting monument to his enlightened patience and criti- 

 cal insight. 



Fritz Muller's work was chiefly concerned with what 

 are now called the problems of bionomics. In other 

 words, he was pre-eminently an observer of the web 

 of life, of the inter-relations of living creatures. His 

 papers deal with the struggle for existence in the tropi- 

 cal forest, with the mutual adaptations of plants and 

 animals, with leaf-cutting ants and myrmecophilous 

 trees, with mimicry and protective resemblance, with 



