WHAT IS A SPECIES? 129 



season in England alone I suppose to collect at least 50 well-marked 

 varieties. Tropical insects however although naturally moro variable 

 than temperate ones owing to many of them breeding continuously 

 all the year round, have hitherto been far more rigorously defined, 

 and the same entomologists who would have no difficulty with the 

 50 forms of A. caja would insist that a haphazard collection of. let 

 us say, Terias liecahe made in one season in India alone contained 5 

 or 6 species at least. The truth is that most exotic insects have 

 been described and named by eminent systematists in Europe who 

 had no first-hand knowledge of the creatures themselves and were 

 consequently obliged to rely on arbitrary distinctions and who have 

 by no means always been willing to accept correction from the man on 

 the spot. 



Naturally it seems to collectors abroad that these gentlemen have 

 taken their responsibilities too lightly, and acting en the belief that in 

 nature there was no such thing as a species they have gone on multiply- 

 ing names with the object of defining forms as rigorously as possible en 

 a purely artificial basis. 



It is remarkable that those who have been most ready to r.dopt cr 

 misinterpret the Darwinian theory in this direction have, as a rule, been 

 by no means willing to apply it to the higher divisions of classification, 

 or to attempt any historical or evolutionary treatment of nature as a 

 whole. 



The consequence of all this is that the nomenclature of practically 

 the whole animal kingdom is now admittedly in a state of almost 

 inextricable confusion. 



Yet in spite of all this, probably every practical naturalist still has a 

 deep-seated belief that there is really such a thing as a species, though 

 he is often in difficulties as to individuals. 



He argues that though it may be the case that if wo had before us 

 not merely every form that is now extant, but every form that ever 

 did exist from palaeozoic times there might be such a perfect 

 gradation that every one would admit there was no such thing 

 as a species — or genus, family, order or class either— yet as a fact 

 the extant forms are not jo'ofyth part of the extinct in number, 

 and that in consequence by far the majority are now so isolated from 

 the disappearance of intermediates that really no one will dispute then- 

 existence either in nature or convenient arrangement. 

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