The Butterfly Hunter

There are the three great names in 19th Century biology. Charles Darwin, Alfred Wallace and Henry Walter Bates and yet the only full biography of Bates was written in 1969. This woeful void is remedied by Anthony Crawforth. Bates was a crucial figure and played an important part in helping both Darwin and Wallace complete their thinking. Batesian Mimicry, as it is still known, developed from the study of butterflies in the amazon rainforest (with Wallace) and provided important supporting eviden…