THE ENTOMOLOGISTS 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 242.] SATUEDAY, MAY 25, 1861. [Price Id. 
CLIMATE. 
It is a common remark amongst Con- 
tinental Lepidopterists that species are 
more variable here than in France or 
Germany, and that of some species 
which on the Continent always preserve 
a very uniform character it is very . 
difficult to find two British specimens 
alike. Why is this? 
Mr. Birchall, on visiting Rannoch 
last summer, appears to have been 
“ much struck with the great variation 
from ordinary southern forms of many 
of the Rannoch Lepidoptera” (Zoologist, 
p. 7621). It may well puzzle a wise 
man why Xi/lophasia Polyodon should 
generally be blacker in Scotland than 
in England, whilst Fidonia Piniaria 
is always whiter on the northern side 
of the border. 
Mr. Birchall suggests that if collec- 
tions, in which the “ whole row system ” 
prevails, were arranged, not according 
to the present pyramidal plan of the 
little one at the top and the big one 
at the bottom, but according to the 
locality of capture, much benefit to 
Science would arise from such an in- 
novation, though we much fear that 
to those of conservative tendencies it 
would hardly be palatable. 
Why should not the rows commence 
with specimens taken south of the 
Thames; then would follow those cap- 
tured between the Thames and the 
Humber; then those from the district 
between the Humber and the Tyne ; 
then those from between the Tyne and 
the Tweed; then the Scotch specimens 
south of Forth and Clyde; then those 
from the north of those rivers, but 
south of the Caledonian Canal; and, 
lastly, those north of the Caledonian 
Canal. 
A series of each species in a genus 
thus arranged geographically would 
have a most instructive appearance, 
and if the specimens from the same 
latitudes be kept in parallel columns, 
as they would be by the “whole-row 
system,” it would be so easy to com- 
pare the forms of allied species in the 
same localities: the Scotch Aplecla 
Tincta would be placed by the side of 
the Scotch Nehulosa and the Scotch 
Occulta, whilst at the top of the same 
rows would be seen the same insects 
from the New Forest. 
I 
