Finally, whoever compares the discussions in this volume with those published twenty years ago on any branch of Natural History, will see how wide and rich a field for study has been opened up through the principle of Evolution; and such fields, without the light shed on them by this principle, would for long or for ever have remained barren. CHARLES DARWIN. TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. In offering to English readers this translation of Professor Weismann’s well-known “Studies in the Theory of Descent,” the main part of which is devoted to entomological subjects, I have been actuated by the desire of placing in the hands of English naturalists one of the most complete of recent contributions to the theory of Evolution as applied to the elucidation of certain interesting groups of facts offered by the insect world. Although many, if not most, working naturalists are already familiar with the results of Dr. Weismann’s researches, of which abstracts have from time to time appeared in English and American scientific journals, I nevertheless believe that a study of the complete work, by enabling the reader to follow closely the detailed lines of reasoning and methods of experiment employed by the author, will be found to be of considerable value to those biologists who have not been able to follow the somewhat difficult phraseology of the original. It is not my intention, nor would it be becoming in me to discuss here the merits of the results arrived at by the minute and laborious investigations with which Dr. Weismann has for many years occupied himself. I may however point out that before the appearance of the present work the author, in addition to his well-known papers on the embryology and development of insects, had published two valuable contributions to the theory of descent, viz. one entitled “Über die Berechtigung der Darwin’schen Theorie” (1868), and another “Über den Einfluss der Isolirung auf die Artbildung” (1872). These works, which are perhaps not so well known in this country as could be desired, might be advantageously studied in connection with the present volume wherein they are frequently referred to. Since every new contribution to science is a fresh starting-point for future work, I may venture without any great breach of propriety to dwell briefly upon one or two of the main points which appear to me to be suggested by Prof. Weismann’s investigations.