THE VARIATION AND CORRELATIONS OF 



portion of the June, 1904, collection from Gotha all four of these spe- 

 cies are represented, but they are all just on the boundary of the area 

 of variation (table 3) . The collection as a whole could scarcely be more 

 exactly intermediate. The dimensions of the very large sipeciesfirmMS are 

 not exactly realized in any of my collections, although the large specimen 

 from Cold Spring Harbor (table 53) would probably be so named. Its 

 ovipositor is 2 mm. too large, but the posterior femora are as much too 

 small. In this latter collection arenaceus and abbreviatus are each rep- 

 resented by a few specimens, but they are at the edge of the range of 

 variation. The Perkins Cove group (table 22) also closely approxi- 

 mates firwiis. In it arenaceus and abbreviatus are well in the center of 

 the area of variation. 



TABLE 2. Amherst, Massachusetts, 1901. 

 OVIPOSITOR. 



- 



K 

 fc 



a 

 - 



M 

 O 

 PL, 



I might go through any of the correlation tables of the Appendix, or 

 others which I do not publish here, and show the same thing which 

 these tables seem to bring out very clearly, namely, that when we 

 study really representative collections from ever so restricted regions 

 we get perfectly graduated series with respect to a given combination 

 of characters from one named condition to another, or a series which 

 misses, for the most part, all of them. The species have, in truth, 

 been named by Americans as well as Europeans from individuals picked 

 here and there in limited numbers from the range of variation; but, 

 since only the extreme individuals are thought worthy of a name, the 

 vast majority, being mediocre, fit nowhere, unless it be with the medi- 

 ocre "species" abbreviatus, which is usually described as having quite a 

 wide range of variation. Typical specimens of americanus and firmus 

 are rare for the same reason that very short men and very tall men are 

 rare. 



Out of it all there is one thing clear, it seems to me: Either we simply 

 name stages in a great continuous mass of variations and call them 



