036 [December 



explains fully and completely that Colorational Unity which we 

 find to prevail everywhere in Nature. The Creative Theory has hith- 

 erto failed to give any explanation whatever, deserving the name of 

 explanation, of numberless such phenomena as these. What T have 

 called the Unity of Habits (see above p. 570) points like a finger- 

 post in the same direction as the Piiytophagic Unity of genera; and 

 there is even, as Prof. Agassiz was perhaps the first to clearly point 

 out, both a Unity of Voice in the same family of animals and also a 

 Unity of Motion. {Mfthods of Stud i/, pp. 121-5.) 



It is true that these last three Unities are dependent upon Structure, 

 and as our Systems of Classification are founded upon Structure, we 

 mi<'ht naturally expect that where the Structure is nearly identical, 

 the Habits, and the Voice, and the Motion should also be nearly iden- 

 tical. But, so far as we can discover, Coloration is entirely independent 

 of Structure, and does not form any part of the basis of our present 

 Classifications, though some Naturalists are beginning to recognize it as 

 of generic value. No man ought to wonder that one Cicinrfcfa, for 

 example, is structurally like another Clrlndida, for it is precisely be- 

 cause they are structurally alike that both are referred to the same 

 genus; but it is most surprising, that, although Coloration has had no- 

 thing to do with their Classification, and there are hundreds of specie.^ 

 known and described, there is the same fundamental design or pattern 

 on the elytra of all of them.* On the Creative Theory, who can assign 

 even a probable reason for this and a whole host of similar phenomenal 

 Who can explain why Gomphm^. of which there are now 8G described 

 species, should always be yellow or greenish-yellow, and, according to 

 Selys and Hagen, have normally 6 black stripes on what is called the 

 dorsum of the thorax ? Why Cocrinella and Hippodaviia should have 

 red or yellow elytra dotted with black, and Citindela have green or 

 red or brown-black elytra, with all the intermediate grades of color, 

 marked by three white luuules on certain definite parts ? Why Pte.rnn- 

 tichus should be black and Fcecdns metallic green or blue ? Why Piftif: 

 and Fontia should be white spotted with black, and Hipparchia and 



* See on this subject Dr. LeConte's Memoir on the Cicindelidae of the U. S. 

 {Trans. Am. Phil. Ent. Phil. Soc. XI. p. 28.) Dr. LeConte found that C. ■i-lineata 

 Fabr.. an East Indian species which has instead of the normal markings "two 

 yellow stripes on each elytrum," had certain structural peculiarities which au- 

 thorized its being placed in a new genus, Hypostha Lee. 



