Full Description
One of the privileges of appointment to a Chair at another University is that it gives one the right to talk to many distinguished people about their work and ideas. E. B. Ford was known to me before I came to Oxford as the author of a book on butterflies and as somewhat of an eccentric, but I was quite unprepared for the welcome he gave me into the Department of Zoology and for the enormous interest of the subject which he gradually revealed to me. My contact with the Genetics Laboratory was made easier by one of the first things I had to do. Within a few weeks of my arrival, it came to light that a new building for another department was to be erected on a piece of land, known to us as 'Henry's weed garden' but generally regarded as being derelict. Even my, at that time, elementary, knowledge of ecological genetics made it easy to realize that the population of caterpillars that had been under continuous observation there for eleven years put it in a rather special category of wilderness; although I did not succeed in saving it, I was able to persuade the university to substitute another experimental plot and this may have helped the geneticists to appreciate that the new professor was not only interested in electrical apparatus.
Contents
1 The Evolution of Polymorphic Systems.- 2 Plant Evolution in Extreme Environments.- 3 Polymorphism in a Polynesian Land Snail, Partula suturalis vexillum.- 4 Colour and Banding Morphs in Subfossil Samples of the Snail Cepaea.- 5 Shell Size and Natural Selection in Cepaea nemoralis.- 6 Evolutionary Oscillations in Drosophila pseudoobscura.- 7 Melanism in the Two-Spot Ladybird, Adalia bipunctata, in Great Britain.- 8 The Distribution of Melanism in the Pale Brindled Beauty Moth, Phigalia pedaria, in Great Britain.- 9 Recessive Melanism in the Moth Lasiocampa quercus.- 10 Speculations about Mimicry with Henry Ford.- 11 Studies of Müllerian Mimicry and its Evolution in Burnet Moths and Heliconid Butterflies.- 12 Avian Feeding Behaviour and the Selective Advantage of Incipient Mimicry.- 13 An Analysis of Spot Placing in the Meadow Brown Butterfly, Maniola jurtina.- 14 An Esterase Polymorphism in the Bleak, Alburnus alburnus, Pisces.- 15 Gene Duplication and Haemoglobin Polymorphism.- 16 The Molecular Basis of Thalassaemia.- 17 Blood Group Interactions between Mother and Foetus.- 18 Drug Therapy as an Aspect of Ecological Genetics.- 19 Ecological Genetics and Biology Teaching.
