Darwin Correspondence Project

King St. Leicester

30 April 1862

My Dear Mr Darwin

I arrived here late on Friday night much fatigued. I wish to tell you what I learnt at the British Museum relative to the insects of South Temperate S. America & New Zealand. The Carabi of Chili & Tierra del Fuego are a remarkable case. There are 11 species known & I examined 8 of them, I have sent for a German Monograph which will tell me all about them. They form a subgenus Ceroglossus of Solier & as a group they are quite distinct from all other Carabi their nearest relationship being with S. European species. The genus Carabus is absent from Tropical America, N. Zealand, Australia & the Malay archipelago. I will not be quite sure before seeing the Monograph that none have any near resemblance with species of N. Temperate zone; I believe however there is no near affinity & therefore that no Carabus crossed the tropics during the recent Glacial epoch. It is inconceivable that these Carabi <sh>ould have crossed & that their near allies in the North (2 or 300 species) should have undergone an entire modification amounting to subgeneric value, since the crossing, as Dr Hooker suggested. Could the genus have originated in Chili independently? The great genus Calosoma nearly allied to Carabus but sharply distinct is almost cosmopolitan & appears of higher antiquity than Carabus for O. Heer (über die fossile Calosomen, just out) finds many in tertiary strata of Europe & N. America & no<t> a single Carabus. Could Carabi have segregated from Calosoma in the North & in the South independently? I think it highly improbable & have no doubt you think so.

What do other groups say? I was surprised at the poverty of the British Museum in Chilian Butt<erfl>ies   I thought it was rich. In your journal you mention flocks of many species off Patagonia   I only find 3 from E. side of S. America from Buenos Ayres to Falkland islands. 46 species in all have been described. All accounts agree that Chili is poor in butterflies but still there must be more than 46 for Britain has 66. Of these 46 I found only 12 in B. M. but I referred to descriptions & was able to get a good knowledge of 13 more. These teach us much the same lesson as the Carabi with a few other things in addition. There are species very closely allied to European & Californian ones for instance a ``meadow brown'' Epinephile Janiroides very near our Janira. The genus or subg. Epinephile is quite unknown in tropical America but is present in California, Canada (& U.S.?) & N. Temperate zone old world, but the Chilian sp. comes nearest European sp. The genera are generally the same as N. Temperate, but the species in 6 cases form groups peculiar to Chili. In one genus the species are very closely allied to species of mountainous Tropical America. One solitary sp. is common to Chili, S. Brazil (30d S. lat.) & Venezuela & is totally absent, genus & species, from Amazon region. 2 or 3 quite tropical species exist in middle chili as local varieties.

The Cicindelidæ of which 8 are recorded confirm the above with the exception that there appears to be no species more nearly related to N. Temperate than to Tropical American sp.

The New Zealand insect fauna is wonderfully scanty   I find only 7 Butterflies & 3 Cicindelidæ recorded all of which I examined. The Cicindelæ belong to a group which occurs in New Guinea but I do not know where else. All the Butterflies but one (a comn. Australian sp.) are peculiar to the country; one forms a peculiar N. Zealand genus   The rest have a generic resemblance to those of N. Temperate zone; two of them come nearer to European species than they do to any Australian or equatorial Asian but they are of such a nature that it is inconceivable how they could be modifications of Northern species which crossed the equator so recently as during the Glacial epoch.

It would be very desirable to publish in some journal a complete analysis of the insect fauna of these S. Temperate countries; but the great deficiency of our English collections makes me afraid of undertaking it. I never felt more painfully the confused state of the B.M. collections & the loose manner in which additions have been made. Nothing wd. be easier than to obtain a very large set of Chilian Insects for there are resident collectors & Continental Museums seem to get supplied. Do you think it would be worth while to analyse the Chilian Carabi & adduce confirmations from other groups?

I send you the references which I promised. At the B.M. one day Mr Pascoe shewed me the case of Dimorphism he announced. It is in the males only— two forms of male very different in structure. of course this has nothing to do with dimorphism in flowers but does it not throw light on the first origin of neuter <  >ts,—2 forms of female?—

I set an artist to work on the plates of mimetic butterflies which <it> appears will be very expensive.

Please give my kind regards to Mrs Darwin & family

Yours sincerely | H W Bates.

I find this precious bit in a Vienna periodical just to hand. ``Dedicamus hocce genus eximium cel. Domino Henrico Bates, Darwinianæ doctrinæ propugnatori acerrimo &c''   I don't know how the author got to know I was a Darwinian.

I am told that the vacant place at B.M. will be filled by a young man who has Prof. Owen's protection & that it will be little or no use my becoming a candidate

Dr. Fr. Kolenati, Meletemata Entomologica, Fascic. 1.2. Petrop. 1845— (The work is advertised by Williams & Norgate— it is not in Ent. Soc. library London— I have seen a very good abstract & it appears Kol. goes very deeply into the geograph. distrib. of insects in the Caucasian lands. It was sent out by the Imp. Botanic Gardens, St Petersburg.) ``The snow zone begins at 1400 Klafter (8,400 ft) & ends at 2000 Kl. (12,000 ft.?) The insects are few, nearly all beetles; all peculiar to the snow zone & all wingless. The genera are as follows:

H. Drouet has given an account of these in Revue & Magazin de Zoologie 1859. I could not find this work in London. I have seen only a short abstract— 57 species of beetles are given   all except one, have a striking European character & many are common to the Azores & Europe; one (Calathus fulvipes) I have hunted out & find to be a N. European insect. A thorough analysis is desirable & could easily be made by a good European Coleopterist. The solitary tropical beetle is a common American one found throughout Brazil & W. Indies but not in N. America; it presents local varieties in America   it appears well established on Azores, found on fig trees in 3 islands.

<    > Lucanus cervus   L. cervus varies in the number of leaf<l>ike expanded joints of the antennæ, from 4 to 6   This feature was always considered of specific importance & many species were f<ounde>d on it other differences accompanying—viz. L. pentaphyllus—L. Fabiani—L. Pont-Crianti & L. turcicus— They are now believed to be all one sp. by Kraatz Berliner Entom. Zeitschrift 1860 p 68--9.— I notice these varieties are local, being found in S. & S.E. Europe