42 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



No doubt niHcy forms of life came and went before insects appeared. These are 

 comparatively highly organized forms of life, the higher appearing later in point of 

 time, life keeping pace with its surroundings, and so maintaining harmony. The 

 conditions are not uniform over all the earth's surface at the present time, and we 

 know that the appearance of the life of the various portions of the globe differs in 

 many instances to such an extent that an expert can tell from what part of the world 

 a particular form came by its appearance ; and thus we learn that variation in living 

 forms is not a thing of recent origin. 



Our knowledge of the extent to which variation may go is largely obtained from 

 man's efiorts to change for his own advantage those kinds which he thought were 

 going to prove conducive to his welfare or gratifying to his fancy. But man's methods 

 in bringing it about are not identical with nature's. Although they must be in har- 

 mony with the laws of nature for profitable results, yet illustrations taken from one 

 and applied to the other may be very misleading. 



Wallace, in his " Island Life," page 55, says : " Few persons consider how largely 

 and universally all animals are varying. We know, however, that in every generation^ 

 if we could examine all the individuals of any common species, we should find con- 

 siderable differences, not only in size and colour, but in the form and proportions of 

 all the parts and organs of the body. In our domesticated animals we know this to 

 be the case, and it is by means of the continual selection of such slight varieties to 

 breed from that all our extremely different domestic breeds have been produced. Think 

 of the difference in every limb and every bone and muscle, and probably in every part, 

 internal and external, of the whole body between a greyhound and a bull-dog ! Yet 

 if we had the whole series of ancestors of these two breeds before us, we should 

 probably find that in no one generation was there a greater difference than now occurs in 

 the same breed, or sometimes even the same litter. It is often thought, however, that 

 wild species do not vary sufficiently to bring about any such change as this in the 

 same time ; and though naturalists are well aware that this is a mistake, it is only 

 recently that they are able to adduce positive proof of their opinions." 



In this extract we get great truths clearly stated, with a misleading inference 

 appended. No divergence has ever appeared in the dog family in nature at all com- 

 parable to that between a greyhound and a bull-dog, and I have no hesitation in 

 saying never would, no matter what length of time was given, and so long as the dog 

 remained in a state of nature, we might add never could, and the reason is simple 

 and obvious. All man's domestic animals came originally from wild foims ; all the 

 possibilities that man has disclosed were latent therein. Under domestication they 

 became apparent, then by selection, elimination and rf jection, man led one strain in 

 this direction and another in that, concentrating and exaggerating these points of 

 difference until the present results have been reached. Now, selection in nature is of 

 the most indiscriminate character possible. There is a constant commingling of the 

 slightly divergent forms going on that never gives any peculiarity an opportunity to 

 concentrate and disclose itself very conspicuously, and if it did in one instance it 

 would be reduced or even obliterated, to all appearance, in the next generation. And 

 it is this sort of selection that produces and maintains that marked degree of general 

 uniformity which we see does prevail amongst living forms in a state of nature. Thus 

 we learn how widely divergent is the result of selection in nature from selection by 

 man for his own benefit, the one tending to reduce variation to a minimum, the other 

 to carry it onward to its maximum. 



The most powerful influence for the producing of variation in life in nature, is to be 

 found in external conditions. A power inherent in a locality, capable of modifying the 

 appearance of an organism residing therein, combined with the susceptibility in varying 

 degrees of the organism to receive, retain and transmit the impressions. That living 

 forms are changed in appearance by residence in different parts of the globe is a fact not 

 requiring to be proved in the present day. It has forced itself upon the attention of all 

 observing travellers, and the books of such travellers as Darwin and Wallace are full of 

 examples of it; and as the attention of those engaged in the investigation of nature ia 



