29 
There are many other problems awaiting solution, some of them of 
merely passing interest, others again likely to prove of real and even 
vital importance to the well-being of the human race, such as some of 
those concerning heredity; and probably no worker in the whole range 
of biology has better opportunities of attacking these problems than 
the entomologist. But it is not easy to draw the line between the 
unimportant and the important, and there is hardly any investigation 
that is not worthy of being undertaken by him to whom its interest 
appeals; very often we find that a great discovery is made almost 
accidentally, in the course of the earnest pursuit of some quite different 
path of research. Some naturalists who are a good deal above the 
average might be inclined to smile at the zeal with which the humbler 
worker throws himself into some question of the differentiation of two 
closely-related species or varieties, and might tell him that his labour 
is virtually useless, seeing that from the evolutionary standpoint the 
difference between “ species,” “ subspecies” and “variety” is more a 
difference of terms than one of actual fact. I may be mistaken, but I 
myself think that this work, properly carried out, is by no means in 
vain, but that good fruit may be expected from its persistent pursuit. 
My predecessor in this Chair, in his able philosophical dissertations 
has done much to shake our faith in the objective existence of any such 
sharply-defined segregation of individuals as we understand by our 
term “ species.” Yet I believe he would not for a moment deny—and 
certainly I will not for a moment deny—that the term is of the utmost 
utility for conveying a general idea, and that for every one case in which 
it breaks down in its precise application, there are hundreds—nay, I 
might safely say there are thousands—of cases in which it represents 
accurately that which we observe. Every breeder of our lepidoptera 
in any considerable numbers will certainly bear me out in this asser¬ 
tion. But while we know that a “ species ” has, in this vast majority 
of cases, such well-marked constitution and delimitation, it is neverthe¬ 
less true that there are few problems which require more patience and 
care for their investigation than that of the specific right of two or 
more closely-allied species, and it may, therefore, be claimed that 
investigation of this kind is both a good training in itself and also a 
very likely avenue to the discovery of other matters of still greater 
value. 
There are few things more calculated to anger me than the whole¬ 
sale telescoping of species to which some writers are so prone—often 
upon a mere “bowing acquaintance” based upon the inspection of a 
few dried specimens in a Museum. A recent writer, for instance, 
sinks Scoparia basistriyalis as a synonym of S. ambigualis —a synonym, 
mark you, not even a variety worthy of being separately diagnosed— 
and does this presumably because he cannot find any difference in the 
neuration of the imago. As it is a little larger and more strongly-built 
he opines that it is produced by moisture, and it matters not that one 
of our best micro-lepidopterists, who has had many years’ experience 
of S. basistriyalis, and has from careful observation become convinced 
of its distinctness—it matters not that this gentleman tells our author 
that the wood where he takes it is the driest in Kent, the name basistri¬ 
yalis has to sink, sharing the fate of many another name between the 
same two covers. Not long ago I was talking to a very able botanist 
of my acquaintance, and our conversation turned upon the recent 
