186 | Reviews. [Jan. 
dence, ill-health arising from bad and insufficient food; and feel 
rejoiced that he was well repaid by the fact that the neighbourhood 
yielded him, up to the last day of his residence, an uninterrupted suc- 
cession of new and curious forms in the different classes of the animal 
kingdom, but especially insects. 
It is difficult, from sucha mine of information as is displayed in 
the contents of these two volumes of travel, to select for illustration 
one subject of considerably greater interest than another. Mr. Bates 
discourses of monkeys, of serpents, of birds, of insects, of vegetation, 
of natives, and all with the air of one who speaks of what he has seen. 
But it is to insects more especially that his attention was directed, 
and if we were to single out one subject in particular which he has 
thoroughly studied, it would be that of the history of the various spe- 
cies of Ants, the Satiba Ant, the Formiga de Fogo or Fire Ants, the Ter- 
mites, the Foraging Ants, &c., for the graphic and interesting accounts 
of which, however, we must refer the reader to his volumes. But while 
it is to insects that he has devoted a large portion of his attention, it 
is in reference to them also chiefly, that he has advanced those views 
which we have already alluded to, as bearing upon the question of the 
origin of species; and in the remaining portion of this article we 
shall briefly notice those views. 
Among insects, the causes and influence of colour is a very im- 
portant subject, which receives its share of attention, but although 
the brilliant ornamentation of the males exists in the fauna of all 
climates, it certainly reaches a higher degree of perfection in the 
tropics than elsewhere; nevertheless Mr. Bates concludes that it 
is not wholly the external conditions of light, heat, moisture, and 
so forth, which determine the general aspect of the animals of a 
country, and he combats the generally entertained notion that the 
superior size and beauty of tropical insects and birds are imme- 
diately due to the physical conditions of a tropical climate, or are 
in some way directly connected with them. It is almost always the 
males only which are beautiful in colours; the brilliant dress is rarely 
worn by both sexes of the same species. If climate had any direct 
influence in this matter, why, he asks, have not both sexes felt its 
effects, and why are the males of genera, living under our gloomy 
English skies, adorned with bright colours? It is true the tropics 
have a vastly greater total number of species altogether ; the abund- 
ance of food, high temperature, absence of seasons of extreme cold 
and dearth, and the variety of stations, all probably operate in favour- 
ing the existence of a greater number and variety of species in tropical 
than in temperate latitudes; but the contrast between the colouring 
of the sexes is often greater in the tropics than in any species of tem- 
perate zones, so that, in fact, beauty of colour is not peculiar to any 
one zone, but producible under any climate where a number of species 
or given genus lead a flourishing existence. ‘These facts “all point to 
the mutual relations of the species, and especially to those between 
the sexes, as having far more to do in the matter than climate.” Else- 
where he makes a remark in which we most heartily concur : “I think 
