Comments on TVW’s book [On the variation of species with special reference to the Insecta (1856)].
On TVW’s Unitarianism. Predicts TVW will fall further away from Christianity.
[Letter sent by TVW to Charles Lyell.]
Comments on TVW’s book [On the variation of species with special reference to the Insecta (1856)].
On TVW’s Unitarianism. Predicts TVW will fall further away from Christianity.
[Letter sent by TVW to Charles Lyell.]
Hybrid insects.
Description of the Salvages.
Variability of "transition groups" of insects; relation of variability to ranges of insects. The variability of wings, even within species. Reduction of flying ability on isolated islands.
Forbes’s "Atlantis" theory and insect fauna of the Atlantic islands, considered with regard to insect migrations.
Sends Madeira specimens, including frogs recently introduced into the island, and flourishing.
Madeiran insects. Regards the "Atlantic province" as a centre of the Coleoptera.
On the relationship of the loss of the powers of flight [in Coleoptera] to increase of bulk.
Informs CD that the "dishonest mollusks" were collected in May 1855 in Porto Santo. Describes some Madeira species. Though believing in "species" more and more, these may be "mere insular modifications".
Variability of certain features within insect genera.
Lists groups of insects absent from the Madeiran fauna.
He was unaware that varieties occurred proportionately more in large genera.
Recommends a work [Leonard Gyllenhaal, Insecta Suecica, 4 vols. (1808–27)] for tabulating varieties.
Lists "close geographical representatives of Europaean species" based on the species numbers [in T. V. Wollaston, Catalogue of the coleopterous insects of Madeira (1857)].
Has received a batch of S. African specimens which contain many of the Atlantic genera he found in Madeira and the Canaries.