358 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



scientific demonstration.* It is simply teleology come back to 

 the house newly swept and garnished. To the teleologist every- 

 thing in nature proclaimed design, and a precisely similar view — 

 only differing in terminology — is held by an extreme wing of our 

 own Darwinian army ; the only distinction is, that the design in 

 one case was attributed to a supernatural providence, in the other, 

 to an all-sufficing power represented by the term Natural Selection. 

 That the teleologist was in no way inferior, but in many in- 

 stances — so far as power of observation was concerned — surpassed 

 the knowledge of many of our contemporary entomological evo- 

 lutionists, is a fact that can be easily realized by perusing the 

 exhaustive Letter XXI. in Kirby and Spence's ' Introduction to 

 Entomology,' on " The means by which insects defend them- 

 selves." In this letter may be found a wealth of illustration on 

 what we understand as " protective resemblance," &c, not avail- 

 able in any special work written on that theory. How near to 

 modern thought the writer of that letter was, is proved by its last 

 paragraph : — " Another idea that upon this occasion must force 

 itself into our mind is, that nothing is made in vain. When we 

 find that so many seemingly trivial variations in the colour, 

 clothing, form, structure, motions, habits, and economy of insects 

 are of very great importance to them, we may safely conclude 

 that the peculiarities in all these respects, of which we do not yet 

 know the use, are equally necessary ; and we may almost say, 

 reversing the words of our Saviour, that not a hair is given to 

 them without our Heavenly Father." Even when teleological 

 views and the conception of a special creation dominated the 

 minds of naturalists, the knowledge of the existence of inter- 

 mediate forms — a postulate of modern evolution — was more or 

 less enunciated. Thus, in the first part of the * Zoological 

 Transactions,' Mr. Ogilby, in describing the Cynictis Steedmanii, 

 2l mammal just then discovered in South Africa, remarks: " That 

 the work of creation was originally complete and perfect in all its 



* According to Prof*. Miall, when writing on " Flies with Aquatic Larvae,' 

 " The attitude, the mode of breathing, and the mode of feeding observed in 

 the larva of Dixa are curiously like those of a certain Gnat larva, Anopheles. 

 So close is the resemblance, that an experienced entomologist has, in a 

 published paper, mistaken one for the other. There are few better examples 

 of adaptive resemblance " (' Nat. Hist. Aquatic Insects,' p. 163). But the 

 reasons why this should be considered as adaptive resemblance are not stated, 



