Varieties of Locality. 55 



appeared singulai", earnestly to recommend zoologists about to 

 visit a distant country, carefully to study there the animals of 

 their own country. It would, then, have been supposed that 

 researches were attended with no useful object when they went 

 merely to the establishment of a few slight differences, and 

 the addition of a few species more to the long series of ani- 

 mals already known. The progress of science has, happily, 

 modified, and continues more and more to modify, this ten- 

 dency in minds endued ^^ith a very imperfect understanding 

 of the admirable work of Linnaeus ; and varieties of locality, 

 those demi-species, as they have elsewhere been called by one 

 of us, — sub-species, as they are named by German authors, 

 now excite the interest of all distinguished zoologists as much 

 as the groups termed species themselves.* 



This is not the place to discuss, or even to indicate the 

 scientific controversies for which the difficult subject of varie- 

 ties of locality has afforded a text ; still less can we examine 

 how far we may be permitted to hope that these minute, and 

 sometimes almost insensible, differences, so long neglected, 

 may one day afford a key to the greatest and most strongly 

 marked. It is enough that important questions affecting the 

 very philosophy of science, have been started regarding the 

 varieties of locality ; it is enough that the solution of the diffi- 

 culties which now beset zoology, and tend to make its progress 

 uncertaui and vacillating, depends on the deep study of these 

 varieties ; it is enough, in short, that there exists any doubt 

 on the subject, to authorize us to demand of the zoologists of 

 the expedition, observations and collections which Scandina- 

 via affords them such a favourable field for making. This 

 ■vast peninsula, presenting at the same time extensive plains 

 and great chains of mountains, lies sufficiently near us to ren- 

 der it likely that nearly all our species occur there, but at the 

 same time it is sufficiently distant, and, in particular, suffi- 

 ciently different in its climate, to make them most frequently 

 exhibit very notalile modifications. The small number of 

 facts now known to us, enables us to foresee the interesting 

 resirits which may be obtained by a comparison of the Faunas 

 of the two countries, when it shall be founded on a sufficient 



* .Sec Note A, at the uiul of the Zoulogical lustruction«- 



