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XXXV. — On the vaeiotts Conteiyances ut which Beitish. 

 AKD Foreign Oechids aee teetilized by Insects, and on 

 THE GOOD EFFECTS OP iNTEECEOSSiNG. By Cliarles Darwin, 

 M.A., F.E.S., &c. With illustrations. 



Amongst the prominent diiferences between the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms, there is one which, though never taught in 

 schools and seldom alluded to in books, cannot fail to occur to the 

 reflecting Naturalist ; it is this, that whereas imisexuality is the rule 

 amongst the highest orders of animals, and hermaphroditism becomes 

 more frequent as we descend in the scale, the contrary is the case with 

 plants. It is not our purpose here to discuss this curious contrast, of 

 the significance of which in a scientific point of view we have hitherto 

 been absolutely ignorant ; it is enough to say that the results arrived 

 at in the work whose title heads this article, show that amongst many 

 plants apparent and real hermaphroditism are totally difierent things, 

 and that before reasoning further on the subject, we must begin again 

 not only to observe, but also to experiment. 



But our future observations will be of very little use if they are 

 to comprise nothing more than the circumstances of the presence of 

 both sexes in one plant, or on one individual ; observations, to lead 

 to any good results, must not only be systematically and carefuUy, 

 but intelligently made ; they must, in fact, be suggested by some pre- 

 vious idea, and collected for the support or the contrary, of some 

 possible or probable truth ; and the wider the application of that 

 truth, the more fruitful and suggestive will be the accumulated ob- 

 servations directed to its elucidation. 



In the present work Mr. Darwin has given the results of obser- 

 vations made for the purpose of trying his theory, " that no herma- 

 phrodite fertilizes itself for a perpetuity of generations ;" his ulterior 

 hypothesis, of the origin of species by natural selection, is, as enim- 

 ciated by himself, untenable if the contrary were demonstrable. 

 Now one of the most obvious objections to this position Hes in the 

 fact that the higher plants are structurally hermaphrodite, and that 

 not only is it the apparent design of that condition to ensure the 

 fertilization of each flower by its own pollen, but that a multitude of 

 minor points in the structure of the flower appear to be as many 

 contrivances to render self-fecundation doubly sure. To controvert 

 this view was a bold idea, under any circumstances ; and to show, 

 as Mr. Darwin has done, that in one very large Natural Order of 

 plants, and in that very Order in which the contrivances seemed most 

 directed to ensure self-fertilization, all our previous notions were 

 wrong, and most of our observations faulty, is a great triumph, that 

 cannot fail to secure to its author a more attentive hearing for his 

 ulterior views than these have hitherto gained. Nay further, had 

 Mr. Darwin not investigated this point he would have had no secure 

 foundation for his great hypothesis, for, as we have observed already. 



