to be understood that the species would actually comport itself in this
manner. On the contrary, I am of opinion that in this case also, the
winter form is primary. The northward migration (from Africa to south
Spain) would be quite insufficient, and the winter form is now found in
Africa as well as in Spain.
V.
ON ALTERNATION OF GENERATIONS.
Seasonal dimorphism has already been designated by Wallace as
alternation of generation,[37] a term which cannot be disputed so long
as it is confined to a regular alternation of dissimilar generations.
But little is gained by this definition, however, unless it can be
proved that both phenomena are due to similar causes, and that they
are consequently brought about by analogous processes. The causes of
alternation of generation have, until the present time, been scarcely
investigated, owing to the want of material. Haeckel alone has quite
recently subjected these complicated phenomena generally to a searching
investigation, and has arrived at the conclusion that the various
forms of metagenesis can be arranged in two series. He distinguishes
a progressive and a retrogressive series, comprising under the former
those species “which, to a certain extent, are still in a transition
stage from monogenesis to amphigenesis (asexual to sexual propagation),
and the early progenitors of which, therefore, never exclusively
propagated themselves sexually” (_Trematoda_, _Hydromedusæ_). Under the
other, or retrogressive form of metagenesis, Haeckel includes a “return
from amphigenesis to monogenesis,” this being the case with all those
species which now manifest a regular alternation from amphigenesis to
parthenogenesis (_Aphides_, _Rotatoria_, _Daphniidæ_, _Phyllopoda_,
&c.). Essentially I can but agree entirely with Haeckel. Simply
regarding the phenomena of alternation of generation as at present
known, it appears to me to be readily admissible that these multiform
modes of propagation must have originated in at least two different
ways, which can be aptly formulated in the manner suggested by Haeckel.
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