have been carefully described, so that we possess a considerable mass of information on the subject. Utilising this information we will now endeavour to give some idea of the nature and extent of variation in the species of animals and plants.

It is very commonly objected that the widespread and constant variability which is admitted to be a characteristic of domesticated animals and cultivated plants is largely due to the unnatural conditions of their existence, and that we have no proof of any corresponding amount of variation occurring in a state of nature. Wild animals and plants, it is said, are usually stable, and when variations occur these are alleged to be small in amount and to affect superficial characters only; or if larger and more important, to occur so rarely as not to afford any aid in the supposed formation of new species.

This objection, as will be shown, is utterly unfounded; but as it is one which goes to the very root of the problem, it is necessary to enter at some length into the various proofs of variation in a state of nature. This is the more necessary because the materials collected by Mr. Darwin bearing on this question have never been published, and comparatively few of them have been cited in The Origin of Species; while a considerable body of facts has been made known since the publication of the last edition of that work.

Variability of the Lower Animals.

Among the lowest and most ancient marine organisms are the Foraminifera, little masses of living jelly, apparently structureless, but which secrete beautiful shelly coverings, often perfectly symmetrical, as varied in form as those of the mollusca and far more complicated. These have been studied with great care by many eminent naturalists, and the late Dr. W. B. Carpenter in his great work-the Introduction to the Study of the Foraminifera-thus refers to their variability: "There is not a single species of plant or animal of which the range of variation has been studied by the collocation and comparison of so large a number of specimens as have passed under the review of Messrs. Williamson, Parker, Rupert Jones, and myself in our studies of the types of this group;" and he states as the result of this extensive comparison of

specimens: "The range of variation is so great among the Foraminifera as to include not merely those differential characters which have been usually accounted specific, but also those upon which the greater part of the genera of this group have been founded, and even in some instances those of its orders." "" 1

Coming now to a higher group-the Sea-Anemones-Mr. P. H. Gosse and other writers on these creatures often refer to variations in size, in the thickness and length of the tentacles, the form of the disc and of the mouth, and the character of surface of the column, while the colour varies enormously in a great number of the species. Similar variations occur in all the various groups of marine invertebrata, and in the great sub-kingdom of the mollusca they are especially numerous. Thus, Dr. S. P. Woodward states that many present a most perplexing amount of variation, resulting (as he supposes) from supply of food, variety of depth and of saltness of the water; but we know that many variations are quite independent of such causes, and we will now consider a few cases among the land-mollusca in which they have been more carefully studied.

In the small forest region of Oahu, one of the Sandwich Islands, there have been found about 175 species of land-shells represented by 700 or 800 varieties; and we are told by the Rev. J. T. Gulick, who studied them carefully, that "we frequently find a genus represented in several successive valleys by allied species, sometimes feeding on the same, sometimes on different plants. In every such case the valleys that are nearest to each other furnish the most nearly allied forms; and a full set of the varieties of each species presents a minute gradation of forms between the more divergent types found in the more widely separated localities."

In most land-shells there is a considerable amount of variation in colour, markings, size, form, and texture or striation of the surface, even in specimens collected in the same locality. Thus, a French author has enumerated no less than 198 varieties of the common wood-snail (Helix nemoralis), while of the equally common garden-snail (Helix hortensis) ninety varieties have been described. Fresh-water shells are also

1 Foraminifera, preface, p. x.

subject to great variation, so that there is much uncertainty as to the number of species; and variations are especially frequent in the Limnæidæ, which exhibit many eccentric deviations from the usual form of the species-deviations which must often affect the form of the living animal. In Mr. Ingersoll's Report on the Recent Mollusca of Colorado many of these extraordinary variations are referred to, and it is stated that a shell (Helisoma trivolvis) abundant in some small ponds and lakes, had scarcely two specimens alike, and many of them closely resembled other and altogether distinct species.1

The Variability of Insects.

Among Insects there is a large amount of variation, though very few entomologists devote themselves to its investigation. Our first examples will be taken from the late Mr. T. Vernon Wollaston's book, On the Variation of Species, and they must be considered as indications of very widespread though little noticed phenomena. He speaks of the curious little carabideous beetles of the genus Notiophilus as being "extremely unstable both in their sculpture and hue;" of the common Calathus mollis as having "the hind wings at one time ample, at another rudimentary, and at a third nearly obsolete ;" and of the same irregularity as to the wings being characteristic of many Orthoptera and of the Homopterous Fulgorida. Mr. Westwood in his Modern Classification of Insects states that "the species of Gerris, Hydrometra, and Velia are mostly found perfectly apterous, though occasionally with full-sized wings."

It is, however, among the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) that the most numerous cases of variation have been observed, and every good collection of these insects affords striking examples. I will first adduce the testimony of Mr. Bates, who speaks of the butterflies of the Amazon valley exhibiting innumerable local varieties or races, while some species showed great individual variability. Of the beautiful Mechanitis Polymnia he says, that at Ega on the Upper Amazons, "it varies not only in general colour and pattern, but also very considerably in the shape of the wings, especially in the male sex." Again, at St. Paulo, Ithomia

1 United States Geological Survey of the Territories, 1874.

Orolina exhibits four distinct varieties, all occurring together, and these differ not only in colour but in form, one variety being described as having the fore wings much elongated in the male, while another is much larger and has "the hind wings in the male different in shape." Of Heliconius Numata Mr. Bates says: "This species is so variable that it is difficult to find two examples exactly alike," while "it varies in structure as well as in colours. The wings are sometimes broader, sometimes narrower; and their edges are simple in some examples and festooned in others." Of another species of the same genus, H. melpomene, ten distinct varieties are described all more or less connected by intermediate forms, and four of these varieties were obtained at one locality, Serpa on the north bank of the Amazon. Ceratina Ninonia is another of these very unstable species exhibiting many local varieties which are, however, incomplete and connected by intermediate forms; while the several species of the genus Lycorea all vary to such an extent as almost to link them together, so that Mr. Bates thinks they might all fairly be considered as varieties of one species only.

Turning to the Eastern Hemisphere we have in Papilio Severus a species which exhibits a large amount of simple variation, in the presence or absence of a pale patch on the upper wings, in the brown submarginal marks on the lower wings, in the form and extent of the yellow band, and in the size of the specimens. The most extreme forms, as well as the intermediate ones, are often found in one locality and in company with each other. A small butterfly (Terias hecabe) ranges over the whole of the Indian and Malayan regions to Australia, and everywhere exhibits great variations, many of which have been described as distinct species; but a gentleman in Australia bred two of these distinct forms (T. hecabe and T. Æsiope), with several intermediates, from one batch of caterpillars found feeding together on the same plant. It is therefore very probable that a considerable number of supposed distinct species are only individual varieties.

Cases of variation similar to those now adduced among butterflies might be increased indefinitely, but it is as well to note that such important characters as the neuration of the 1 Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London, 1875, p. vii.

wings, on which generic and family distinctions are often established, are also subject to variation. The Rev. R. P. Murray, in 1872, laid before the Entomological Society examples of such variation in six species of butterflies, and other cases have been since described. The larvæ of butterflies and moths are also very variable, and one observer recorded in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society for 1870 no less than sixteen varieties of the caterpillar of the bedstraw hawk-moth (Deilephela galii).

Variation among Lizards.

Passing on from the lower animals to the vertebrata, we find more abundant and more definite evidence as to the extent and amount of individual variation. I will first give a case among the Reptilia from some of Mr. Darwin's unpublished MSS., which have been kindly lent me by Mr. Francis Darwin.

'M. Milne Edwards (Annales des Sci. Nat., 1 ser., tom. xvi. p. 50) has given a curious table of measurements of fourteen specimens of Lacerta muralis; and, taking the length of the head as a standard, he finds the neck, trunk, tail, front and hind legs, colour, and femoral pores, all varying wonderfully; and so it is more or less with other species. So apparently trifling a character as the scales on the head affording almost the only constant characters."

As the table of measurements above referred to would give no clear conception of the nature and amount of the variation without a laborious study and comparison of the figures, I have endeavoured to find a method of presenting the facts to the eye, so that they may be easily grasped and appreciated. In the diagram opposite, the comparative variations of the different organs of this species are given by means of variously bent lines. The head is represented by a straight line because it presented (apparently) no variation. The body is next given, the specimens being arranged in the order of their size from No. 1, the smallest, to No. 14, the largest, the actual lengths being laid down from a base line at a suitable distance below, in this case two inches below the centre, the mean length of the body of the fourteen specimens being two inches.

The respective lengths of the neck, legs, and toe of