448 LETTERS TO DARWIN, 1843-1859 
[For Darwin's answer see CD. ii. 44, which leads to the 
following] : 
To Charles Darwin 
[March 1855.] 
[Wollaston] ^ adduced one fact as opposed to Forbes' 
Atlantis theory, which is O'phrys, an abundant S. Europe 
genus of many common species, but unknown in Madeira. 
Now this has such minute seeds and such millions of them, 
that if the Madeira plants were transported aerially, one 
cannot conceive the absence of Ophrys. To me such cases 
as Ophrys are extremely important, as indicating a sequence 
in the creation of groups, for if Ophrys was as abundant and 
wide-spread when Atlantis existed as now, it must have 
been there too then and w^e take for granted w^ould be now^ ; 
on the other hand, assuming the wand as the agent, if Ophrys 
had existed in Europe as long as the other species that are 
common to Europe and Madeira, its seeds must have got 
wafted across. 
The fact of apterous coleoptera strikes me too as extremely 
curious and reminds me of an old remark I made that not 
only the few^ beetles of Kerguelen Land were apterous but 
the only lepidopterous insect in the island was so too ! 
Your final cause for so many insects being apterous is 
very pretty and no doubt good, but how does it square wdth 
the fact, that so large a proportion of Desert (Sahara, 
Pampas, Australian) Coleoptera are apterous — that in fact 
where wdngs would be most w^anted and where it is to be 
assumed that great areas must be traversed for either 
animal or vegetable food, that there the insects have 
smallest powers of locomotion — that where the deer, bhds, and 
carnivora have the longest legs the insects have the shortest. 
Had the Madeira coleoptera unusually strong pow^ers of 
flight, w^ould we not have said that this w^as to enable them 
to make for shore again after being blown out to sea ? 
I have just (thanks to Bentham's kind aid) concluded a 
good and complete catalogue of the Australian Leguminosae, 
and shall probably work it yet. There is but one European 
species, the common Lotus corniculatus ; it abounds in 
^ Thomas Vernon Wollaston (1822-78), entomologist and conchologist ; 
M.A. Cambridge 1849; F.R.S. 1847; made collections and published works 
relating chiefly to the coleoptera of Madeira, in addition to other writings. 
