150 Claim of ceiiain Lepidopteraiis Insects 



indigenous. His views of natural distribution appear on this 

 point as limited as are the boundaries of land and water, 

 within which he would confine the species to whom he denies 

 the rights of citizenship, on the plea of their being interlopers 

 escaped from a foreign land. He puts out of the question 

 the important influence of temperature, and the numerous 

 aberrations of Nature from her own general laws ; deviations 

 so numerous, as generally to leave our most specious theories 

 terribly at fault. 



A man of such extensive information on all subjects con- 

 nected with natural science as Mr. Stephens, must, no doubt, 

 be aware that vegetable and animal forms of specific identity 

 are often produced in very distant regions, to the exclusion 

 of those immediately contiguous or intervening; in which 

 ease, be it observed, there is for the most part a decided cor- 

 respondence, or at least approximation, in temperature, soil, 

 elevation, or other requisite condition, between the two coun- 

 tries. Circas^fl! lutetiana is found in the moist vallejj^s of Ne- 

 paul*, as in our own climate : many of our plants are truly 

 indigenous to the northern parts of Ameiica. Wahlenberg 

 remarks, in Flora Sueczca, upon Feratrum album, that it oc- 

 curs copiously on the alpine ridges of Norway and Switzer- 

 land, while we may search in vain for the same plant in any 

 intermediate locality. To confine ourselves to our legitimate 

 class for an illustration, our own beautiful Cynthia cardui is 

 found without a varying mark, according to LatreilJe, not 

 only at the Cape, but in New Holland, " though oceans roll 

 between ;" this common insect being fitted to exist under 

 very different ranges of temperature. In the same way is 

 Vanessa Antiopa distributed over all Europe and a great 

 part of the northern continent of America. 



It may be objected to us, perhaps, when advocating the 

 claims o£ Sphina: Carolhia, quinquemaculata, Drurr(?V, &c., to 

 a place in our indigenous catalogues, that the instances of their 

 capture in this country are loo ^^ kw and far between" to 

 warrant the concession of such a privilege ; that their appear- 

 ance is of modern date, no mention of them being made by 

 the older entomologists, nor any instance of their capture 

 recorded prior to the middle of the last century. 



To this we answer, that paucity of number cannot be 

 urged as an objection, without implicating many insects of 

 indisputable British origin in the general suspicion of ex- 



* In Smith's English Flora, vol. i. p. 210., is this remark on Galium 

 Sparine : — " This common European plant has been found wild in the 

 remote country of Nepaul by the Hon. Captain Gardner, from whom 

 Dr. Wallich has sent us specimens." — J. D. 



