266 THE SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [ch. xiv. 



Down, Nov. 20, [1862]. 



Dear Bates, I have just finished, after several reads, 

 your paper.* In my opinion it is one of the most remark- 

 able and admirable papers I ever read in my life. The 

 mimetic cases are truly marvellous, and you connect excel- 

 lently a host of analogous facts. The illustrations are beau- 

 tiful, and seem very well chosen ; but it would have saved 

 the reader not a little trouble, if the name of each had been 

 engraved below each separate figure. No doubt this would 

 have put the engraver into fits, as it would have destroyed 

 the beauty of the plate. I am not at all surprised at such a 

 paper having consumed much time. I am rejoiced that I 

 passed over the whole subject in the Origin, for I should 

 have made a precious mess of it. You have most clearly 

 stated and solved a wonderful problem. No doubt with 

 most people this will be the cream of the paper ; but I am 

 not sure that all your facts and reasonings on variation, and 

 on the segregation of complete and semi-complete species, 

 is not really more, or at least as valuable a part. I never 

 conceived the process nearly so clearly before; one feels 

 present at the creation of new forms. I wish, however, you 

 had enlarged a little more on the pairing of similar varieties ; 



*Mr. Bates' paper, 'Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazons 

 Valley ' {Linn. Soc. Trans, xxiii., 1862), in which the now familiar subject of 

 mimicry was founded. My father wrote a short review of it in the JS'atural 

 History Review, 1863, p. 219, parts of which occur almost verbatim in the later 

 editions of the Origin of Species. A striking passage occurs in the review, 

 showing the difficulties of the case from a creationist's point of view : 



" By what means, it may be asked, have so many butterflies of the Ama- 

 zonian region acquired their deceptive dress ? Most naturalists will answer 

 that they were thus clothed from the hour of their creation an answer which 

 will generally be so far triumphant that it can be met only by long-drawn 

 arguments ; but it is made at the expense of putting an effectual bar to all 

 further inquiry. In this particular case, moreover, the creationist will meet 

 with special difficulties ; for many of the mimicking forms of Leptalis can be 

 shown by a graduated series to be merely varieties of one species; other 

 mimickers are undoubtedly distinct species, or even distinct genera. So again, 

 some of the mimicked forms can be shown to be merely varieties ; but the 



greater number must be ranked as distinct species. Hence the creationist will 

 ave to admit that some of these forms have become imitators, by means of 

 the laws of variation, whilst others he must look at as separately created un- 

 der their present guise; he will further have to admit that some have been 

 created in imitation of forms not themselves created as we now see them, but 

 due to the laws of variation ! Professor Agassiz, indeed, would think nothing 

 of this difficulty ; for he believes that not only each species and each variety, 

 but that groups of individuals, though identically the same, when inhabiting 

 distinct countries, have been all separately created in due proportional num- 

 bers to the wants of each land. Not many naturalists will be content thus to 

 believe that varieties and individuals have been turned out all ready made, 

 almost as a manufacturer turns out toys according to the temporary demand 

 of the market. 1 ' 



