( cxxxix ) 



To what extent the emotions I have referred to as springs 

 of action may be within the compass of our apprehension, 

 whether and how far they may affect the distribution of insects, 

 their presence here, their absence there, their abundance or 

 their I'arity, are further questions. Only it may be suggested 

 generally that where actions controlled by mind, whatever its 

 quality, are concerned, conditions such as are adapted to exalt 

 or depress emotions, to stimulate or deaden them, have their 

 influence ; and that those conditions which conduce to the free, 

 healthy, and vigorous exercise of this controlling power, and to 

 the habits and actions which are its manifestation, may have 

 some influence in promoting the success of the organism, 

 its vitality and its abundance. 



PsijcJdcal element important. 

 I would point out also that, granted the existence of the 

 psychical element, it should be moi-e important and more 

 likely to be persistent than the habit, the director being of 

 greater consequence than the directed, and this not only in the 

 species but in the individual. As I believe others have re- 

 marked, though I cannot lay my hand on the reference, an 

 organism is something more than an individual, it is a person. 

 Those who have observed insects in large numbers must have 

 noted differential qualities which may be called personal.* 

 And there must be many more of these qualities than we can 

 perceive. 



Numerical persistence of abundant and rare species. 



Let me now advert again to my earlier questions, relating 

 to the abundance and the rai-ity of species, and to their 

 numerical persistence. 



I would suggest that where warmth is combined with 

 moisture and other suitable conditions a given piece of land 



* At one time I was keeping some 50 or 60 S. tetralunaria, offspring of 

 a single pair, in darkness, that they might not move and spoil themselves. 

 Whenever I lifted the cover so that they were exposed to the light there 

 were some few that immediately moved, one or two actively. In Tntt's 

 "British Butterflies," now in course of puhlication, p. 458, mention is 

 made of three bred Ghrysophanus dispar, all of which showed very different 

 dispositions. The various fights one sees between insects show " personal " 

 differences in courage and endiirance. There is possibly an analogy between 

 the operation of this variability of disposition and the operation of 

 physical variability (polymorphism, etc.). 



PROC. ENT. see. LOND., V. 1906. K 



