specific modifications of Japan Car obi. 505 



forest. Let another instance be cited. Everywhere on 

 the soil in summer time we see innumerable Formicidce, 

 active and bustling, running here and there in the sun- 

 niest places ; some are fuscous, others reddish, but with 

 them we do not see the fiavous species. To find Lasius 

 flavm we turn over stones, and then see the yellow 

 worker, which burrows and remains in the nest under 

 them ; while the male and female more frequently leave 

 the nests, and are less flavous, I have seen numbers of 

 exotic Formicidce of the same colour and habit, for, as it 

 is under the shelter of the forest with the lichens and 

 Nochue, so under the stones, there seems something in 

 the nature of the shelter, to cause a peculiar colour, this 

 time yellow. And, as a further indication of the same 

 kind, we find a rufo-testaceous tint in Clavdger, Hetarius, 

 Corythoderus, Paussus, which reside in situations similar 

 to those of the worker in Lasius. I have Articeros from 

 the nests of a fuscous ant with nests under stones, but 

 the instincts and habits of the Formica lead it abroad, 

 and during daylight it continually sallies out and runs 

 over the earth, returning to the nest only at intervals ; 

 while Articeros remains at home under stones, and, so 

 hidden, retains its generic colour. With Formica rufa 

 there are different coloured beetles, Dendropliilus, Myr- 

 metes, &c., for neither the beetles nor the ants are sub- 

 terraneous. In Japan there is a little gregarious beetle 

 which consorts in societies under embedded stones, not in 

 the open, but under large trees ; it is one of the Ozcenidce, 

 and has precisely the colour of the neuter of Lasius flavus. 

 When coloroAis uniformity occurs in animals of widely 

 different descent, yet living under the same conditions, 

 the colours are probably of the same origin, for natural 

 selection could not in any phase do naore than continue 

 or render persistent that which has been created by other 

 means. Certain species of Lampyridcs are flavous, and 

 in this colour are of world-wide distribution, but their 

 habits are the same in all countries and under all 

 climates, and we must not hastily say the colour is that 

 of the group or family, or that it is hereditary, because, 

 as I have said in regard to the yellow Lasius, the parents 

 B,re fuscous, and it looks to me as though the conditions 

 of life have more influence on colour than even parentage. 

 And if the general principle of this is admitted, can the 

 protective colour theory be allowed to occupy the posi- 

 tion in our thoughts it has obtained during the past 

 twenty years ? 



