Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection gathers the key essays of Alfred Russel Wallace, the naturalist who independently arrived at the principle of natural selection and prompted Darwin to publish On the Origin of Species. The volume presents Wallace’s own statements of evolutionary theory alongside detailed studies drawn from his fieldwork in the Malay Archipelago.
Wallace writes lucidly on mimicry, protective coloration, the geographical distribution of species, and the limits he believed natural selection could not cross in the case of the human mind. His essays show evolutionary biology being argued out by one of its founders, with vivid examples from butterflies, birds, and tropical forests. For readers interested in the history of science, this is an indispensable companion to Darwin and a portrait of a generous, original scientific intelligence.