Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/284

 who has studied the group has doubted for a moment that the two are perfectly and originally distinct species, like the hare and rabbit, for instance, or any other two allied species of one and the same genus. The following facts, however, led me to conclude that the one is simply a modification of the other. There are, as might be supposed, districts of forest intermediate in character between the drier areas of Obydos, &c., and the moister tracts which compose the rest of the immense river valley. At two places in these intermediate districts, namely, Serpa, 180 miles west of Obydos, on the same side of the river, and Aveyros, on the lower Tapajos, most of the individuals of these Heliconii which occurred were transition forms between the two species. Already, at Obydos, H. Melpomene showed some slight variation amongst its individuals in the direction of H. Thelxiope, but not anything nearly approaching it. It might be said that these transition forms were hybrids, produced by the intercrossing of two originally distinct species; but the two come in contact in several places where these intermediate examples are unknown, and I never observed them to pair with each other. Besides which, many of them occur also on the coast of Guiana, where H. Thelxiope has never been found. These hybrid-looking specimens are connected together by so complete a chain of gradations that it is difficult to separate them even into varieties, and they are incomparably more rare than the two extreme forms. They link together gradually the wide interval between the two species. One is driven to conclude, from these facts, that the two were originally one and the same: the