The Relative Abundance of Different Species in a Wild Animal Population

In a series of papers published during the past six years I have discussed the frequency distribution of the relative abundance of different species of animals in random samples from wild populations. From data obtained, chiefly by collecting Lepidoptera in a light-trap, it was found that there was an orderly distribution in such samples, and in practically all cases the number of species represented by one individual was greater than the number represented by two, the number with two greater than that with three, and so on. The distribution in the sample, on an arithmetic scale of number of individuals per species, was in the form of a 'hollow curve'.