William Morton Wheeler, Biologist

William Morton Wheeler, (1865-1937), a man of extraordinary learning in many fields and a brilliant writer and lecturer, is a significant figure in the history of biology. His studies of social insects, especially ants, contributed greatly to the biological sciences, but his interests and acquaintances ranged far beyond that one limited aspect of biology. In this volume the Evans combine a well-written biography with an important contribution to the history of biology. Their study begins with Wheelers boyhood in Milwaukee and his year at Wards Natural Science Establishment in Rochester. His activities as a graduate student at Clark University and his early teaching at the Universities of Chicago and Texas enable them to present an inside view of the formative years of those institutions, as does his involvement with the founding of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole and the Barro Colorado Laboratory in Panama. After a few years at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Wheeler went to Harvard, where he stayed for the rest of his life, becoming professor of economic entomology at the Bussey Institution in 1908 and dean in 1914. His continuous and vigorous pioneering make his life story an important chapter in the history of biology. At the time of writing the book, Mr. Evans was Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. Mrs. Evans has contributed articles on the history of biology to several journals.