The Zoologist— May, 1867. 721 



Letters on Variation in Lepidoptera. By Edward Newman. 



Letter the First. — Introduction. — Sexual Variation. 



My dear Mr. Wollaston : 



I address these letters to you because I thus ensure myself 

 a competent and a candid reader : of all entomologists you have 

 proved yourself the most competent to deal with the mysteries of 

 variation, and of all our scientific writers you are certainly the most 

 candid, giving to every phase of every subject the fullest and most 

 careful consideration, and always deferring to the force of truth, 

 unbiassed by preconceived opinions. Still I venture to think that 

 certain additions maybe made to what you have published, just in 

 the same way that we occasionally see a rider tacked on to a Bill in 

 its passage through Parliament, the Bill itself remaining intact and 

 efficient, but the rider filling up some little gap which the original 

 author of the Bill, in his more comprehensive statesmanship, had 

 either overlooked or dismissed as scarcely worthy his consideration. 



Of course every man is right in deducing his conclusions from facts 

 he thoroughly understands; and of all men living I believe you are 

 best acquainted with Coleoptera ; but this is scarcely sufficient : a man 

 may have studied the comets for half a century, and may theorize 

 logically and beautifully on their periodicity and orbits, but if he 

 foi'get for a moment that the steady-going, homely, unattractive planets 

 are ever pursuing their monotonous career, he is scarcely qualified to 

 discourse on the solar system. 



It seems to me that while lingering so fondly over the Coleoptera, 

 and studying so thoroughly the phases of their climatal variation, 

 and thus adding invaluable stores of knowledge to our favourite 

 Science, you have somewhat contracted the area of research and 

 inquiry ; you have, in a word, treated variation as an isolated pheno- 

 menon, rather than as a collection of phenomena which require 

 minute investigation and judicious classification before we can render 

 them available : indeed, you treat variation as you would a beautiful 

 and unknown beetle that has just fallen in your path ; you make 

 yourself thoroughly master of its structure ; from its structure you are 

 led to theorize logically and truthfully on its economy ; and finally 

 you contrast it, with a master's pen, with its congeners and relations, 

 and thus reach conclusions which no man can gainsay. In contradis- 

 tinction to this, I would rather regard variation as a collection of 

 second series — VOL. II. 2 c 



