specific modifications of Japan Carabi. 529 



simple history of climatic and thermal modification is 

 lost, or at least so far obliterated that we cannot easily 

 define the limits to which it goes, although probably in 

 the earlier stages of divergence the characters were 

 stamped on the species in the same clear manner which 

 we see still existing in the Japanese members of the 

 family. 



For the sake of following out the system employed in 

 the earlier note (1879), I have said that Damaster 

 became coloured, &c., as it approached the north, but it 

 does not affect the general argument if it has spread the 

 other way. Carahns is known to be a northern genus, 

 and as Damaster rugipennis and Fortwnei more nearly 

 approach the type than the others, it is of course pro- 

 bable that the southern species are those which have 

 been modified most, because they have been subjected 

 not only to the changing conditions of the globe gene- 

 rally, but by migrating southwards they have passed 

 voluntarily into a subtropical region. 



If eventually we do not find in the north a coloured 

 species allied to procerulus, I am inclined to think of it 

 as a recent divergence, a species now in the act of spread- 

 ing, and not yet differentiated into all the forms which 

 Nature appears as a rule to lead to in this genus. For 

 we all know that species have a very great tendency to 

 inherit the form and habit of their kind, and to remain 

 unaltered for some time ; but at last the tension is too 

 great, the conditions of their lives must act, the line 

 breaks, and then comes the variety which originates a 

 new race. 



We cannot return to the time when Damaster and 

 Carabus agreed better in outline and general contour 

 than at present ; we can merely trace their transitions 

 by a general system of analogy, but in studying close 

 varieties we study evolution, as it were, on the spot ; we 

 see divergencies in their most recent forms, and even 

 perhaps as they are taking place. Seeing this then, 

 may it not be well to but lightly censure " splitters " o"f 

 species who are recognising transitional forms such as 

 are as surely, and, presumably, as rapidly, departing 

 from the type as any species since the time of the earliest 

 insects ? Names need not always be given, for we have 

 passed the line where catalogues are useful, — we have 

 reached the frontier, so to speak, of evolution, and be- 

 yond us lies the future in which Nature will not recognise 



