Botany and Zoology. 285 
. Variation and vs metic Analogy in Lepidoptera.—Mr. Bates (whose 
ogi book of travels, Zhe Naturalist on the River Amazon, is ex- 
citing much attettion in England, and which we trust will be reprinted 
here) has contributed an elaborate paper to the Transactions of the 
Linnean Society, vol. xxiii (1862), entitled Contributions to the Insect 
Fauna of the Amazon Valley, Lepidoptera, Heliconide. The materials 
were gathered by the author during eleven years of travel ols research 
in the Amazon region. e introduction to this paper treats, among 
for them ms less needful to copy large parts of Mr. Bates’ narra- 
tive now, sin abstract of his r has recently ap i 
the Natural History Review. The bearing es’ observations 
geration to say, that, whilst reading and reflecting on the various facts 
given in this memoir, we feel ourselves to be as near witnesses as we can 
ever hope to be of the creation of a new species on this earth.” The two 
subjects, variation and simulation, as may be inferred, are considered in 
rated theory was promulgated. The facts set forth about variation appear 
excellently to illustrate the formation of races and nearly related species 
trate the doctrine of natural sedathiols: ade a peculiar 
“i will first notice some of the reported facts about seca Such 
amount and such gradations of variability as Mr. Bates reports of 
atharfion we races ceased to think very extraordinary in the v 
world; yet we had been led to suppose that forms in the animal world 
oi everywhere more definite and fix ut Mr. Bates’ observations 
to convinced him “that there is a perfect gradation in varia- 
bility, from butterflies of which hardly two can be found arr to rh 
varieties, to well marked races, to races that can hardly be disti 
_ 30m species, to true and ies.” In the genus Ceaitaia, for 
. instance, those parts of structure fi e. the veining of the wings] which 
form neric ee in other groups are here variable in the 
Sexes, and in individuals of the same sex, C. Ninonia “ evidently varies 
in different ways in different localities; yet the local varieties are not 
m 
including the variations under one and the same detiition: or to descri 
ingen the type and the local varieties. ides these aciciplats 
Ocal modifications, easily traceable to the type, there are, as often 
ig: in the case of prolific, widely dis distributed, es variable species, a 
number of other forms rather more strongly marked and better defined, 
which inhabit regions rather more distant from ne locality of the type 
than those which the mere varieties inhabit. ese are admi on 
nds to be distinct species; but I think it would be difficult to prove 
