l895-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 77 



ABERRATION, VARIETY, RACE and FORM. 



By Dr. Rodrigues Ottolengul 



(Continued from page 38, vol. vi, Ent. News.) 



Prof. Grote writes: " Variation in color or marking when oc- 

 curring among typical examples is variety, and varieties should 

 receive a Latin name. For example, Agrotis wilsonii occurs in 

 a typical olive-gray variety, and in a red variety {specialis). It 

 does not matter that intermediary examples exist. The terms 

 must be employed to designate properly the variety. It is the 

 property of varieties that they intergrade, of species that they 

 do not pass into one another." 



Mr. Dyar says: "The variety may intergrade with the normal 

 form, or it may not. In the latter case it is either an aberration, 

 dimorphic form, or local race. * =i= * * J would always name a 

 dimorphic form or a local race." (I would interrupt myself here 

 to query, under which of these heads Mr. Dyar places the occa- 

 sional yellow form of Ardia virgo, to which he recently gave 

 the name ) 



He continues: " The practice of naming intergrading varieties 

 can so easily be carried to an extreme that I do not like to advise 

 it." 



Mr. Neumoegen quotes fronrNeumoegen and Dyar's Revision 

 of the Bombyces, and recognizes local races, " whether connected 

 by intergrading in the intermediate territory or not." 



Let us consider the meaning of intergrading. 



I believe that all of us accept the theory of evolution. Then 

 let us imagine as a starting point a " fixed form" as representing 

 a species. It is hardly conceivable that even in the earliest stages 

 Nature ever fashioned two individuals in an identical mould. 

 Even the slightest diversity would have produced what I shall 

 call Individuality. In time these " individualities" would neces- 

 sarily grow more marked and definite, and the breeding of the 

 more similar individuals With each other, would in time evolve 

 from a fixed form, a variable one. This variableness in like man- 

 ner would increase in the course of years, until at last the species 

 would be represented by individuals of quite diversified appear- 

 ance, instead of as originally by creatures superficially similar. 

 When the species was fixed it would be easy to choose one or 

 more specimens to serve as a type. But when the variable pe- 



