1899] COCCOSPHERES AND RHABDOSPHERES 107 



in regarding these bodies as Algae, but consider that all Coccospheres 

 belong to one genus only, the same applying equally to the Ehabdo- 

 spheres. Both are now described as " free unicellular algae, provided 

 with an outer covering of calcareous plates, free from, overlapping, or 

 readily separable from each other, the plates characterised by sym- 

 metrical excrescences or markings." Both are referred to the family 

 Coccosphaeraceae, the Coccospheres being divided into two species — 

 C. pclayica, Wallicli, and C. leptopora, n.sp. ; while the Bhabdospheres 

 form JR. tubifera, n.sp., and JR. claviger, n.sp. Some beautiful figures 

 by Mr. Highley accompany the paper, which is published in the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions of the Royal Society, volume 190b. 



No Freaks. 



It is recorded in the daily press, whether accurately or otherwise con- 

 cerns us little, that the divergent members of Barnum and Bailey's 

 recently held a meeting, and drew up a memorial protesting against 

 being called freaks. There are discontinuous variations among them, 

 and some strange modifications, but no freaks. It is interesting to 

 find that Dr. Hans Gadow of Cambridge has also been saying " no 

 freaks." The original slight change in pigmentation which started the 

 greenness of the tree-frog is not a spontaneous freak, as the Neo- 

 Darwinians say ; it was caused, Dr. Gadow assures us, by the direct 

 influence of the sunlight. But no experimental evidence of this is 

 given. 



It seems late in the day to point out, as the author does,' that 

 there is nothing spontaneous in the sense of being causeless ; or to 

 emphasise against the "Neo- Darwinians the universally recognised 

 truism that environmental stimuli must be antecedents of all varia- 

 tions. But as the Neo-Darwinians include in their ranks not a few 

 believers in definite variation — see even Weismann's "Germinal 

 Selection,"- — we rather resent being told that we must choose between 

 believing in the inheritance of modifications, which we should gladly 

 do if we could find evidence, and believing that the raw material of 

 evolution may be summed up in the word freaks. 



Dr. Gadow maintains that variations are as such •adaptive, that 

 variation and adaptation are fundamentally the same — an interesting- 

 antithesis to the equally extreme position of Virchow, that all varia- 

 tions are pathological. The author reproaches the Neo-Darwinians 

 for simply taking variations for granted, as if there had not been many 

 attempts (in Cambridge and elsewhere) to find out something about 

 their occurrence, their nature, and their possible origin. And the 

 strange thing is, that after making this reproach, he himself goes one 

 better in postulation, for he begs the question, as it seems to us, by 

 assuming adaptation as a cause, and not a result. 



