12 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION [Chap. VII 



Letter 388 discover whether the ova are adhesive, and whether the 

 female coleoptera are guided by instinct to attach them to 

 the female ants 1 ; or whether the larvae pass through an 

 early stage, as with Sitaris or Meloe, or cling to the bodies 

 of the females. This note obviously requires no answer. 

 I trust that you continue your most interesting investigations 

 on ants. 



Letter 389 To A. R. Wallace. 2 



The following five letters refer to Mr. Wallace's Geographical Distri- 

 bution of Animals, 1876. 



[Hopedene] 3 , June 5th, 1876. 



I must have the pleasure of expressing to you my 

 unbounded admiration of your book, 4 though I have read only 

 to page 184 — my object having been to do as little as 

 possible while resting. I feel sure that you have laid a 

 broad and safe foundation for all future work on Distribution. 

 How interesting it will be to see hereafter plants treated in 

 strict relation to your views ; and then all insects, pulmonate 

 molluscs and fresh-water fishes, in greater detail than I 

 suppose you have given to these lower animals. The point 

 which has interested me most, but I do not say the most 

 valuable point, is your protest against sinking imaginary 

 continents in a quite reckless manner, as was stated by 

 Forbes, followed, alas, by Hooker, and caricatured by 

 Wollaston and [Andrew] Murray ! By the way, the main 

 impression that the latter author has left on my mind is his 

 utter want of all scientific judgment. I have lifted up my 

 voice against the above view with no avail, but I have no 



1 Dr. Sharp is good enough to tell us that he is not aware of any such 

 adaptation. Broadly speaking, the distribution of the nest-inhabiting 

 beetles is due to co-migration with the ants, though in some cases the 

 ants transport the beetles. Sitaris and Meloe are beetles which live " at 

 the expense of bees of the genus Anthophora." The eggs are laid not in 

 but near the bees' nest ; in the early stage the larva is active and has the 

 instinct to seize any hairy object near it, and in this way they are carried by 

 the Anthophora to the nest. Dr. Sharp states that no such preliminary 

 stage is known in the ant's-nest beetles. For an account of Sitaris and 

 Meloe, see Sharp's Insects, II., p. 272. 



2 Published in Life and Letters, III., p. 230. 



3 Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood's house in Surrey. 



4 Geographical Distribution, 1876. 



