Scientific Intelligence — Zoology: 197* 



— At a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Professor 

 Agassiz said that he had formerly shewn that, in studying the rela- 

 tions of different stages in the embryonic development to permanent 

 forms of insects, a better idea of their natural classification oould be 

 obtained than in any other way ; and he now proposed to shew that 

 this view might be still farther carried out, even to the fixing of the 

 relative positions of the different families. It had been a question 

 whether the diurnal or nocturnal butterflies should stand first in the 

 scale. Ho proceeded to shew that the different positions and rela- 

 tions of the wing in the progress of development of Papilio Correspond 

 to the permanent conditions of these appendages in the various fami- 

 lies of the Lepidoptera, and thence deduced their true position; 

 placing, 1st, Papilionidse ; 2d, Hesperidae ; 3d, Sphingidse ; 4th, 

 Bombycidse; 5th, Noctridse ; 6th, Pyralidss; Yth, Tineidse. In a- 

 similar way he indicated the true position of the different types of Ar- 

 ticulata, shewing a close analogy between their permanent forms and 

 the transient conditions of an insect, beginning with the Caterpillar,' 

 which corresponds in type with the Annelidse. By the same test he 

 shewed the true position of Millipedes and Spiders ; the former being 

 insects with a worm-like form, the latter with the anterior parts 

 united into a cephalothorax like the Crustacea, corresponding to the 

 pupa condition in type. — American Annual of Scientific Discovery 

 for 1851, p. 339. 



16. Doctrine of Specific OrganicCentres. — "The actual zoology and 

 botany of the earth's surface exhibit several distinct regions, in each 

 of which the indigenous animals and plants are, at least as to species, 

 and, to a considerable amount, as to genera, different from those of 

 other zoological and botanical regions. They are respectively adapted 

 to certain conditions of existence, — such as climate, temperature, 

 mutual relations, and, no doubt, other circumstances of favourable 

 influence which men have not yet discovered, and which never may 

 be discovered in the present state. These conditions cannot be 

 transferred to other situations. The habitation proper to one descrip- 

 tion of vegetable or animal families would be intolerable and speedily 

 fatal to others. Even when, as in many parts of the two hemispheres, 

 and on the contrary side of the equator, there is apparently a simi- 

 larity of climate, we find not an identity, but only an analogy- of 

 animal and vegetable species."* 



The opinions expressed in these remarks of a learned and most 

 exemplary divine have met with violent opposition from some pre- 

 judiced minds; but the more these views are examined the more 

 self evident they become : whence Sir Charles Lyelfs observation, 

 that naturalists have been led " to adopt, very generally, the doctrine 



* Rev. J. Pye Smith. The Relation of the Holy Scriptures and Geological 

 Science, p. 48. * 



