No. 570] SPECIES-BUILDING 327 



epistatic series: a red-brown spotless form, melanopleura, 

 dominant at one end of the series, then annectans, a red- 

 brown, spotted type, and finally the recessive, melanic, 

 red-spotted Inane ml is with a color pattern different from 

 that of annectans or of Coloradensis, another red-brown, 

 spotted type of that locality. " But " says the upholder 

 of the present idea of species, "here we have a single 

 polymorphic species, not three or four different species. 

 The breeding experiments show that the describers of 

 these forms were wrong in ascribing systematic rank to 

 mere color varieties." It goes, of course, almost without 

 saying that the makers of these species did not before 

 naming their beetles, breed them to determine whether 

 they would breed true to type and were infertile 

 inter se. Indeed, in how few cases has this been done! 

 Even the larval stages of most known beetles are imper- 

 fectly unknown, much less the possible genetic relation- 

 ship of one type to another, as determined by breeding 

 them to maturity. Blaisdell 5 describes the case of two 

 Californian Coccinellidae which are found in winter in 

 small groups under the bark of eucalyptus trees. " Usu- 

 ally there was one Olla plagiata with each of the groups 

 [of 0. abdominalis], irrespective of whether they were 

 made up of two or more individuals." The same author, 

 by selection of specimens of abdominalis representing 

 different types of color pattern, describes its range of 

 variation, but adds that his studies throw no light on the 

 relationship of the two species. Had he bred certain in- 

 dividuals of 0. abdominalis together, it is not at all un- 

 likely, in view of his observation of the regular occur- 

 rence of a few plar/iata in every group of abdominalis, 

 that the former interbreeds with the latter and may be a 

 simple recessive in respect to it. Miss Palmer's work 

 on the allied Adalia certainlv suggests this as a possi- 

 bility. 



Another remarkable case is that of the nine true-breed- 

 ing species of grouse-locust, Paratettix, recently de- 



