524 Mr. G. Lewis' supplementary note on the 



If like conditions and wants produce a like form, what 

 is more certain than an offspring should resemble its 

 parent until removed from the conditions under which 

 that parent lived ? And it appears to me to be under 

 impulses somewhat akin to these that hereditary form 

 owes its origin. 



Since writing the foregoing I have read Dr. Hagen's 

 paper in the ' Proc. Amer. Academy,' April, 1882. The 

 conclusion arrived at in this paper regarding colour is : 

 "lam convinced," says the author, "that colour and 

 pattern are produced by physiological processes in the 

 interior of the bodies of insects." Dr. Hagen's obser- 

 vations and inferences are wholly different to mine, but 

 Dr. Weismann is quoted, who believes that colour and 

 pattern in caterpillars is " purely mechanical; " and this 

 process is what I consider has been and is open to 

 proof. Dr. Weismann seems to have confined his obser- 

 vations chiefly to caterpillars, because " they exclude 

 sexual selection;" but if sexual selection is a factor (I 

 exclude it altogether as regards colour) it must act 

 through the imago on the ova and all the intermediate 

 stages of an insect, for in one sense the imago is only a 

 form of puberty. 



I now return to the original subject of this note. 

 Motschulsky, in his diagnosis of Damaster rugipennis, 

 says, "in ^ tar sis anticis articulis tribus primis leviter 

 dilatatis, subtus spongiosis et biseriatim setosis," and 

 D. Fortunei also has the tarsi of the male with three 

 joints dilated and padded beneath, and these two species 

 bridge over the distance between Kollar's genus and 

 Carabiis proper. AVhen Kollar published his species he 

 only knew of the leptodactylous blaptoides with long 

 mucrones, and he thought these sufficient characters on 

 which to found a genus. In D. capito we have a species 

 with slender tarsi in the male, and obtuse elytral points 

 in both sexes, and it is impossible now to consider Da- 

 master any more than an endemic form of a Japanese 

 Carabus. Damaster viridipennis I now know is the same 

 species as Fortunei, Adams ; the type of the latter is in 

 my possession, and is discoloured by emersion in spirit, 

 and the author of the species was not aware of the beau- 

 tiful colour of fresh specimens. For the slender blue 

 variety in pandiirus I have noticed as occurring in the 

 mountains of Chiuzenji, lat. 36° 30", I propose the name 

 of cyanostola ; it is a form quite isolated from the parent 



