The Zoologist — April, 1866. 155 



species; the structure and general form were constant, while the 

 colour varied enormousl}'." This solution, so very rational and 

 obvious, met with no favour, and the subject was linally left in an im- 

 penetrable fo^ : it was exactly one of those cases in which the self- 

 styled "non-believers in species" appear to revel. 



But even Mr. Saunders, although so exceptionally free from the 

 errors of speculators, is scarcely liberal enough in his allowance for 

 variation. Constancy "of form and structure" are by no means 

 essential to specific identity, as we may see every day in Lucanus 

 Cervus and a hundred other Coleoptera. In fine, we must abandon all 

 our foregone conclusions, and look up to Nature as our tutor, instead 

 of inviting her to receive our instructions as a student. 



On the question of species Mr. Wollaston is particularly strong, and 

 lucid as strong. " That there are positive limits (even though, by the 

 nature of the case, undefinable) between which all species are free to 

 become modified has generally been received as an axiom ; nor has 

 this primary truth been so much as touched by the ascertained fact 

 that the permitted range for certain forms (when systematically acted 

 upon by the skill and intellect of man) is so extremely wide, in com- 

 parison with that allowed in the case of others, as to be practically 

 almost infinite. And consequently, if it ever should be shown that we 

 have fallen largely into error in regarding certain closely allied 

 organisms as specifically distinct, I would surmise that it proves 

 absolutely nothing except the fact of our own ignorance as to wliere 

 the proper lines of demarcation are to be drawn. But that those lines 

 have an (abstract) existence somewhere I take for granted ; and it is 

 the province of the naturalist to endeavour to obtain an approximate 

 idea, so far as may be, and so far as his limited experience will permit, 

 of their general positions :" and again, in a foot-note, Mr. Wollaston 

 says, " I infer that variation may have full play, and be by us un- 

 dejinable, and yet positively restrained within the limits which were 

 imposed upon it aboriginally for each separate species ; and therefore 

 conversely that a species may be indefinitely plastic, and yet remain 

 true to its type." These are golden words, and will endure when all 

 the crude and ill-considered assertions of modern naturalists have 

 again subsided into that oblivion whence they should never have 

 emerged. 



The coleopterous fauna of the Allantides, as now ascertained, 

 comprises 1449 species, which Mr. Wollaston thus divides into 

 sections : — 



