XXXIV. CERKCERIS. 241 
punctured and shining, and having frequently a yellow spot at 
its base. 
$ g in my own and other Collections. 
+4+ The variation of colour in this species very naturally 
leads me to the consideration of the colouring of these in- 
sects generally, which involves a question of considerable im- 
portance and deep interest in Natural History, namely, that 
of species and varieties. Are we, for instance, still to con- 
sider those individuals as types which accident first threw 
in the way of being described? or should we take Nature’s 
types—her most perfect specimens, those most thoroughly 
organised or intensely coloured—as the true types, and sink 
the rest into varieties? I have chosen a middle path in the 
present work, and introduced the range of variety into the 
description of the species, for frequently a half a dozen 
alphabets would not enumerate the shades of difference, 
which vary in almost every individual; yet which, where 
itis possible to fall upon the objects and collect at pleasure, 
are found upon a proper selection of specimens to gradate 
so much into each other that no separation can be made. 
This I have experienced to be the case always in the present 
tribe, and would it not probably happen in every other 
branch of Natural History, where similar opportunities for 
collecting numbers occurred? But to return to my original 
object—the colouring of these insects—I may observe that 
the degree of colour of the abdomen is found to affect the 
colouring of the thorax and of the legs; for instance, in 
the present species when there are large yellow markings on 
the fourth segment, there is a yellow spot on each side of 
the collar and a transverse line of yellow on the post- 
dorsolum. And in Gorytes mystaceus, in the variety cam- 
pestris of Linné, which comprises those specimens that 
R 
