310 fHE i;nTOMOLOGIST*S RECOfiD. 



at least, an instance of its raiKJonr.'' This gentleman evidently 

 endows evolution with personal attributes. Deification will no doubt 

 follow shortly. It appears the chief use of authorities is to instruct 

 the common herd, and sooner or later to contradict each other. The 

 certainty of this latter performance is a great and blessed consolation 

 to the same herd, and can always be awaited with patience born of 

 experience. 



By way of metaphor, might not evolution be described as a light 

 on our path, by some taken as a Will of the Wisp, caused by the 

 spontaneous combustion of gas thrown oft' in the decomposition of a 

 great accumulation of heterogeneous facts ; while by others taken as a 

 light leading them to a distant home to be reached by a prodigious 

 eftbrt ? 



Evolution seems to mean, in English, the sequence or order of 

 being or becoming from beginnings. Is knowledge of this sequence 

 attainable even in the future, and further, is its importance com- 

 mensurate with the work necessary for its acquisition ? If the data 

 and materials be examined, it becomes obvious that the corpse and 

 fossils are the enormously predominant factors in such an enquiry. 

 You cannot leave out geology. As to insects, there is, or was till 

 recently, a clean gap in the Pliocene. In the upper Miocene we 

 have 1,300 species — all Orders are represented, Coleoptera most 

 abundantly, and almost all can be referred to existing European 

 genera. 



In the Cretaceous there are tAvo butterflies referable to the 

 HATYRmyj;; in the Oolite, insects are not uncommon; one species of the 

 Lepidoptera is referable to Sphin.r. A large number of insects are 

 found in the Lias of Gloucestershire, and these again can be referred 

 to well-known family types. These facts are suggestive. How far 

 beyond the Pahtozoic epoch must we look for the parent types of each 

 division, letting alone their common parents ? 



Observation of the living specimens and the data of the immediate 

 past aftbrd quite inadequate materials for even plausible generalisations 

 as to the probable descent of any entity now living, considered in thia 

 relation. Anyhow, it is evident that the ideal classification, from the 

 evolutionary point of view, can only be accomplished by each one who 

 is possessed of that ideal leaving his share of facts recorded for others 

 to generalise upon, when the area and period of investigation bear so 

 ridiculously small relative proportion to the area of the globe and the 

 period involved from beginnings. 



When will the bulk of the best entomologists turn their attention 

 to uses, secondary perhaps in order of presentation to the mind, but 

 primary in order of importance ? The authors, popularly speaking, 

 of the evolutionary theory, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and professoi's 

 of science generally, did not altogether follow the method detailed 

 ■above. Had they done so they might never have been heard of outside 

 the small circle of the initiated. They — turning to literature — tried to 

 write popular books, and made a mess of it, as might have been 

 expected, for they were scientists after all. These books, for the most 

 part, are abominably badly written,*'' having regard to the alleged end 

 in view, which is generally defeated. Most are more talked about 



* We disagree absolutely. Few better writers of the English language than 

 Huxley have existed. He and Tyndall made science largely what it is.— Ed. 



