Variability of Species

Abstract

THE writers have, on one hand, been examining the variability of thirty-five species of Lepidoptera, chiefly common British moths, and, on the other hand, studying the variation to be expected theoretically in a population exhibiting inheritance wholly on Mendelian lines, with the corresponding appropriate mutation frequencies, under the influence of natural selection. The conclusions at which they have respectively arrived show a sufficiently striking agreement to suggest a theory which may be generally applicable to the natural variability of wild species.