284 Dr Morton on Hybrid Animals and Plants. 



quently mistaken for distinct kinds."* Yet, on the other 

 hand, Mr Haworth asserts that he has often seen, in coitu, 

 several different species of this genus ; and he adds the fol- 

 lowing observations : — 



" That they mix sexually with each other, when their proper 

 mates cannot be found, is well known ; and I have even had 

 larvw produced from the union of C. tripunctata and C. quad- 

 ripustulata,w\uch, but for an accident, would have been reared. 

 Yet such junctions cannot destroy the distinctions of the 

 primitive species, although it may give birth occasionally to 

 hybrid broods ; not barren, but capable of generating, for a 

 while, others like themselves. Such, in all probability, are 

 Coccinella annulata and C. fasciata. If these two had never 

 existed, no entomologist would have conceived that all the 

 insects of this section and C. bipunctata were of the same 

 species ! Wherefore it follows that they are not. 



" Practical entomologists well know that similar unions 

 happen in other genera, but more especially in Cicada ; and 

 from them arise occasionally a set of hybrid varieties, which 

 still do not overturn the primitive distinctions of the original 

 species whence they sprung, however difficult they may some- 

 times render the task of discriminating amongst such a set 

 of mongrel productions. 



" It is even probable that two species of distinct sections 

 may occasionally generate a race very different from both 

 parents, yet resembling both, and not barren, as is usually 

 the case with mules, but capable of procreating. And such a 

 brood some hold to be a new and distinct species in the scale 

 of nature — brought to light by her own operations, and in 

 the very same way that she has occasionally multiplied, and 

 still continues to increase, the stupendous members of the 

 vegetable kingdom."t 



Part IV, — Plants. 



Dr Prichard, as the result of extensive inquiry, informs 

 us that the number of hybrid plants in the wild or unculti- 



* Vt supra. 



t Trans, of the Entomological Soc. of London, i., pp. 267, 291. 



