The value of a broad mind: some natural history meanderings of Bill Hamilton *

It has been remarked upon by Robert May (MAY 2001) that to write a paper with Bill Hamilton admitted one to a small circle, the honour of inclusion in which was not lost upon him. Equally, I think, a similar circle exits for people who can say they were students of Bill’s. For a brief time I was co-supervised by Bill (and principally by Jeyaraney Kathirithamby). As his student I have found that I hold some imaginary identification card that allows me to garner information from numerous sources about various aspects of Bill’s life. The esteem and reverence that so many biologists have for him guarantees that unsolicited emails requesting information are always answered if they begin with the line ... “I was a student of Bill Hamilton”. The reason I should solicit information at all is that I am deeply fascinated by what exactly people mean when they speak of his “legendary knowledge” of the natural world (TRIVERS 2000). This essay is an attempt to document some of the natural history meanderings of Bill Hamilton. Such curiosity may be justified, as my own work (on peculiar parasites of social wasps) owes everything to a natural history episode of Bill’s, which Luisa Bozzi, his partner for the last 6 years of his life, humorously related at a Social Insect Meeting in Florence, July 2000. Luisa described an old abandoned house on a hill in Tuscany set among rolling fields of olive tress. Such a property appealed to her as a retirement home for them. However, Bill was increasingly nervous and uninterested in the idea. But his interest was greatly revived when he spotted that wasps had made their nest and examining close he found not only nests but also a very unusual aggregation on the blackberry bushes (Rubus spp.) that snaked through a broken window. What was unusual was not only the inactivity of these aggregating wasps but also the fact that most harboured a particular parasite. Correctly identifying it as an insectStrepsiptera, and supposing that its presence accounted for such unusual behaviour, he set about collecting the aggregations. Discussions of domesticity gave way to science and talk of retirement to parasite manipulation of host behaviour. Luisa could but follow! She remarked that many times a walk and conversation in the Ethology Ecology & Evolution 14: 83-89, 2002