184 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [1862 



and admirable papers I ever read in my life. The mimetic 

 cases are truly marvellous, and you connect excellently a 

 host of analogous facts. The illustrations are beautiful, and 

 seem very well chosen ; but it would have saved the reader 

 not a little trouble, if the name of each had been engraved 

 below each separate figure. No doubt this would have put 

 the engraver into fits, as it would have destroyed the beauty 

 of the plate. I am not at all surprised at such a paper hav- 

 ing consumed much time. I am rejoiced that I passed over 

 the whole subject in the ' Origin,' for I should have made 

 a precious mess of it. You have most clearly stated and 

 solved a wonderful problem. No doubt with most people 

 this will be the cream of the paper ; but I am not sure that 

 all your facts and reasonings on variation, and on the segre- 

 gation of complete and semi-complete species, is not really 

 more, or at least as valuable, a part. I never conceived the 

 process nearly so clearly before; one feels present at the 

 creation of new forms. I wish, however, you had enlarged 



that they were thus clothed from the hour of their creation an answer 

 which will generally be so far triumphant that it can be met only by long- 

 drawn arguments ; but it is made at the expense of putting an effectual bar 

 to all further inquiry. In this particular case, moreover, the creationist will 

 meet with special difficulties ; for many of the mimicking forms of Leptalis 

 can be shown by a graduated series to be merely varieties of one species ; 

 other mimickers are undoubtedly distinct species, or even distinct genera, 

 So again, some of the mimicked forms can be shown to be merely varie- 

 ties ; but the greater number must be ranked as distinct species. Hence 

 the creationist will have to admit that some of these forms have become 

 imitators, by means of the laws of variation, whilst others he must look at 

 as separately created under their present guise ; he will further have to 

 admit that some have been created in imitation of forms not themselves 

 created as we now see them, but due to the laws of variation? Prof. 

 Agassiz, indeed, would think nothing of this difficulty ; for he believes that 

 not only each species and each variety, but that groups of individuals, 

 though identically the same, when inhabiting distinct countries, have been 

 all separately created in due proportional numbers to the wants of each 

 land. Not many naturalists will be content thus to believe that varieties 

 and individuals have been turned out all ready made, almost as a manu- 

 facturer turns out toys according to the temporary demand of the market." 



