92 THE WOKLD OF LIFE 



added to 220,000 gives a total now known of JfS6,000, an 

 immense increase on the estimate of Mr. Waterhouse. Of 

 course a far more correct way would be to add the number 

 described as new, each year of the twenty-seven; but as this 

 would involve the counting of all the descriptions in thousands 

 of pages of close print, we cannot be surprised that such a 

 labour was not undertaken. 



It is hardly possible for any one who has not collected 

 some special group of insects in countries where they abound, 

 to realise what the numbers given above really mean. In 

 the Malay Islands alone, I myself collected over a thousand 

 distinct species of one of the most beautiful families of beetles 

 — the Longicorns — of which about 900 were previously quite 

 unknown. Of another immense family — the Curculionidge, 

 or Weevils — I obtained also about 1000 species, of which the 

 same proportion were new. Wliile the former group are re- 

 markable for grace of form, variety of marking, and often for 

 exquisite colouration, the latter are equally interesting for 

 their endless modifications of shape, more sober but beauti- 

 fully marked bodies, strangely bossed surfaces, and, occa- 

 sionally, the most brilliant metallic colours. 



The interest of making such collections, in which the variety 

 was so great as to seem absolutely endless, may be imagined 

 by any lover of nature. But the interest in their study has 

 been intensified by the firm conviction — the growth of half 

 a century of thought upon the subject — that every detail of 

 these wonderful modifications of structure, form, and coloura- 

 tion, have been due to general laws in operation for count- 

 less ages, and that every minutest character, as they occurred 

 through successive variations and became fixed in each species, 

 had a definite purpose; that is, were of use to the creatures 

 which exliibited them. This, however, will be shown later 

 on, when we have to deal with the more important factors 

 of evolution — variation and heredity. 



