IDEA OF SPECIES. 589 



are met with pre-eminently among such insects as are found in the prox- 

 imity of mankind, and there in great multitudes, as, for example, in 

 the recently mentioned Coccinella, in the cockchafer (Melolontha vul- 

 garit;), the garden chafer (Anisoplia horticola), &c. It is also possible 

 that the influence the universal cultivation of the country has had upon 

 even the nutrimental plants, has extended also to them, and has united 

 together several originally distuict species, as may with much proba- 

 bility be asserted of the sub-species of the domestic dog. 



324. 



Many differences of sub-species and varieties depend also upon the 

 nature of the country and of the climate. Several of our recently 

 established species have originated from such circumstances, and must 

 therefore be re-arranged with their original species, as has also been 

 occasionally done by several authors. Carabus arvensis, F., for 

 example, is found not so much in fields as in sub-alpine situations, and 

 here presents itself in its usual form ; C. pommeranus, Oliv., a native 

 of the north of Germany, is one of these sub-species, which is distin- 

 guished by its less brilliant colour and less distinct sculpture ; C. 

 Harcyniee, St., also is a sub-alpine variety of the C. calenulatus, F., 

 which is found in the woods of plains ; and there are doubtlessly many 

 new described species of the Carabodea which stand in the same rela- 

 tion to old and long-known ones. 



We must also enumerate with the sub-species the smaller indivi- 

 duals of many of the Lamellicorns, which have long been separated as 

 true species under a distinct name, for example, the smaller variety of 

 Lucanus cervus, or L. capreolus, of many writers. I think it very 

 possible that these smaller individuals have originated from a deficiency 

 of food or of a less nutritive quality in the larva state *, and that in 

 the larger insects this variety must be greater than in the smaller ones, 

 as the former require more for their support, and are more exposed to 

 the effects of temperature than the latter, the duration of whose lives 

 besides is limited in general to one year, whereas the larger ones pass 

 several years in the larva state. We find smaller, and indeed some- 

 times very small, individuals of almost all the larger, and especially of 

 the very large beetles ; and the Lamellicorns particularly exhibit this 

 variety, for instance, Oryctes nasicornis, Scarabceus stercorarius, 



* This idea I find suggested also in MeckeFs vergleichenden Atiatomie, torn. i. p. 335. 



