On a careful consideration, we find a curious series of
correspondences, both in mind and in environment, which led Darwin
and myself, alone among our contemporaries, to reach identically
the same theory.
First (and most important, as I believe), in early life both
Darwin and myself became ardent beetle-hunters. Now there is
certainly no group of organisms that so impresses the collector by
the almost infinite number of its specific forms, the endless
modifications of structure, shape, colour, and surface-markings
that distinguish them from each other, and their innumerable
adaptations to diverse environments. These interesting features
are exhibited almost as strikingly in temperate as in tropical
regions, our own comparatively limited island-fauna possessing
more than 3,000 species of this one order of insects.
Again, both Darwin and myself had what he terms "the mere passion
for collecting," not that of studying the minutiae of structure,
either internal or external. I should describe it rather as an
intense interest in the variety of living things--the variety that
catches the eye of the observer even among those which are very
much alike, but which are soon found to differ in several distinct
characters.
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