22 g Charles Darwin. 



DARWIN'S WORK IN ENTOMOLOGY. 

 BY CHARLES V. RILEY, PH.D., 



Hon. Curator of Entomology, National Museum ; Entomologist of the Agricultural 

 Department. 



Charles Robert Darwin was one of the original 

 members of the London Entomological Society, of 

 whom only six are yet living. He always took the 

 keenest interest in the science of entomology, and 

 drew largely from insects for illustrations in support 

 of the theory with which his name will forever be 

 associated. Indeed, I have the authority of my late 

 associate editor of the American Entomologist, Ben- 

 jamin Dann Walsh, who was a classmate of Darwin's, 

 at Cambridge, that the latter's love of natural history 

 was chiefly manifested, while there, in a fine collec- 

 tion of insects ; so that, as has been the case with so 

 many noted naturalists, Darwin probably acquired 

 from the study of insects that love of nature which 

 first forever afterward inspired him in his endeavours 

 to win her secrets and interpret aright her ways ! 



Though he has left no descriptive or systematic 

 work of an entomological character, yet his writings 

 abound in important facts and observations anent 

 insects, and no branch of natural science has more 

 fully felt the beneficial impulse and stimulus of his 

 labors than entomology. Indeed, the varying condi- 

 tions of life in the same individual or species ; the 

 remarkable metamorphoses ; the rapid development ; 

 the phenomena of dimorphism and heteromorphism ; 

 of phytophagic and sexual variation ; the ready 

 adaptation to changed conditions, and consequent 



