Abstract
IN a recent number of NATURE I noticed an extract from a paper read before the Literary and Philosophical Society at Manchester, on the subject of variety as distinguished from species. The author suggests the question, “where does species end, variety begin?” From experiments, he finds that the colours in different parts of the wings of insects treated with, in some cases become toned down to a more sombre hue, in others become mixed with the adjoining colour, and that they are in every case smaller. May not these differences be attributed to the effects of a confined and unnatural life. I myself well recollect rearing a Drinker Moth when a boy at school, and obtaining a small, dull-coloured specimen, instead of an insect whose rich brown wings rival in colour those of the well-known “oak-egger.” But difference of colour does not constitute the only variety which is noticed in Lepidoptera, for position of markings and proportions of colour are equally worthy of notice, though not so obvious to the unaccustomed eye. Take, for example, the common six-spot Burnet (Zygana filipendula), of which I know three distinct forms—viz. (I), the ordinary one, with three clear spots; (2), having the spots all connected, forming an ill-defined bar of red down the centre of the upper wings; (3), (a form which I believe to be in general very rarely met with, but of which I have myself captured several specimens), having the red markings of (I) supplied by those of a pale yellow, in both upper and under wings. Now, since these were all captured in one field where the three forms are comparatively common, may it not be more than probable that the difference is not to be denominated a variety, but to be a natural dissimilarity of form; not to be attributed to any physical difference of circumstances, previously to the attainment of the state of “imago,” but to a purely natural and unassisted cause? A white horse is not considered a variety because his sire was a bay, nor is the whiteness of a bullock considered a lusus naturæ if born from tawny parents. I hope to be able to make experiments during the following year, which may perhaps lead to more conclusive results on this subject.
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Variety and Species. Nature 1, 218 (1869). https://doi.org/10.1038/001218a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001218a0
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