ADAPTATION 197 



records go, no great difference between 1858 and 1859, the year 

 1859, in which the period of ripening was the shortest, was some- 

 what colder in Norway than 1858. But we have the further 

 difficulty that there were ten days difference in sowing, for in 

 1858 the sowing was made on May 14, and in 1859 on May 24. 

 With all these possibilities uncontrolled, and indeed unconsidered, 

 I am surprised that Semon should claim these experiments as one 

 of the chief supports for his views. 



Schiibeler's other allegations respecting the influence of 

 climate on plants grown in various places and especially at dif- 

 ferent elevations in Norway have been destructively criticised by 

 Wille 8 to whose paper readers interested in the subject should 

 refer. 



Before the appearance of Wille's criticisms Wettstein 9 made 

 a favourable reference to Schiibeler's work, accepting his con- 

 clusion. He states also that he has himself made analogous 

 experiments with flax, finding that the length of the period of 

 development and a series of morphological characters show an 

 adaptation to local conditions, and that on transference of seed 

 to other conditions the previous effects are maintained. No 

 details, however, are given, and I do not know if anything more 

 on the subject has appeared since. The other examples cited 

 by Wettstein, such as the observations of Cieslar on forest-trees 

 and those of Jakowatz on gentians seem to me open to all the 

 usual objections applicable to evidence of this kind. Such work, 

 to be of any value for the purpose to which it is applied, must be 

 preceded by a study of the normal heredity and of the variations 

 of the species. 



Most of the recent writers (Semon, Przibram, etc.) on the 

 inheritance of acquired characters accept the story of Brown- 

 Sequard's guinea pigs, which are said to have inherited a liability 

 to peculiar epileptiform attacks induced in their parents by various 

 nervous lesions. 



The question has been often debated and several observers 

 have repeated the experiments with varying results, some failing 



8 Wille, N., Biol. Cbltt., XXV, 1905, p. 521. 



9 Wettstein, R. von, Der Neo-marckismus u. seine Beziehungen zum Darwinis- 

 mus, Jena, 1903. 



