126 EARLY DAYS OF DARWINISM 



animal and vegetable life. Experiments are much more 

 easily carried on (and that on a very large scale) with 

 plants than with animals, and it is from plants that what 

 are called " Laws " are most easily deduced ; but when 

 you can make what is really the same experiment on 

 animals, you find the results are similar. In one form or 

 another this has now been tried on Rabbits, Mice of 

 fancy colours, Canary-birds, Pigeons, domestic Fowls, 

 and some other things, and I am assured that the excep- 

 tions to the Mendelian principle proving true are exceed- 

 ingly rare. Bateson and Punnett are trying to find out 

 whether these rare exceptions may not be the result of 

 some other ' ' law ' which we don't at present know, 

 and it seems to me quite possible that they (B. & P.) 

 will succeed. There are occasional interruptions 

 observable in plants, and the cause of them is also under 

 observation. 



Years ago, when I first began lecturing on Evolution, 

 I used to point out that so far as we could judge the 

 phenomena of Hybridisation were precisely similar in 

 animals and in plants, so far as could be tested. Some 

 crosses that were easily made (horse and ass) were abso- 

 lutely sterile ; others obtained with difficulty, or at least 

 seldom (bovines) were perfectly fertile ; and so on with 

 other properties.* 



For many years Newton was a regular attendant at 

 the meetings of the British Association, of which he was 

 placed on the General Committee in 1860. He was for 

 some years Chairman of the Close-time Committee and 

 of the Migration of Birds Committee. At different times 

 he was Secretary, Vice-President, and President, of the 

 Section of Zoology and Botany. The practice of some- 

 times holding the meetings in the Overseas Dominions 

 was established too late in his lifetime for him to take 

 advantage of it, and he particularly regretted being unable 

 to join the party which visited South Africa in 1905. 



* Letter to J A. Harvie-Brown, July 25, 1906. 



