HARDWICK^'S SCIBNCE-GOSSIP. 



107 



inferences as to their introduction drawn from 

 observation, and from conclusions based on evidence ? 

 Does Mr. Lees mean that at some remote period 

 the soil on the Weo Edge, under the influence of 

 some mysterious energy, gave birth to a plant 

 identical with its relative on the uplands of 

 Switzerland ? It is hardly fair to upbraid any one 

 who has left off his evil ways, with tlie errors of 

 earlier years; but I cannot resist the thought, that 

 my learned and very able friend has hardly yet 

 shaken off those views, which I believe he once 

 held, as to the origin of species, and which no doubt 

 he has in the main cast to the moles and bats, and 

 that in this particular instance he is influenced by 

 the impression that a kind of spontaneous creation 

 of plants took place in different localities in some 

 indescribable manner ; otherwise I cannot account 

 for his using such terms as "native " and "indige- 

 nous" in opposition to a possible, and even probable, 

 account of the introduction of a plant. I shall be 

 happy to hear that he repudiates the idea of a 

 vague unaccountable origin of anything, for it has 

 always seemed to me to stiuke^at the root of all 

 scientific investigation. We find ourselves surrounded 

 with natural wonders of all kinds, fossils deeply 

 buried in rocks, plants clothing the surface of 

 the earth — if we are to be stopped at the very 

 commencement of our researches into how these 

 plants and animals came there, how they are related 

 among themselves, and what is their history, by the 

 assertioa that they have been there time immemo- 

 rial, that they are native, indigenous, there would 

 be an end to all information on these most interest- 

 ing problems ; whereas if we start on the reverse 

 principle, viz., that every plant, every fossil, has its 

 own history, which it is our function to unravel as 

 far as we may, ever holding any hypothesis which we 

 may form respecting them, provisionally, and only 

 in proportion to the evidence we can bring to bear 

 upon it, then we may hope that as far as we advance 

 our footing may be firm. 



Mr. Lees names a number of other i-are plants 

 which grow in favoured localities throughout 

 England, and seems to say that, because their 

 introduction is a problem not to be easily accounted 

 for, and because their range in this island is very 

 restricted, he can see no reason or necessity for 

 calling in the Roman mason to plant the Astrantia 

 upon a Shropshire hill. It is not easy to see the 

 force of this argument, nay, it would rather tend 

 the other way, since it is probable that the more 

 restricted and the more isolated such foreign plants 

 are, the more probable it is that their existence is due 

 to some accidental cause, than to that gradual 

 development by regular descent from some common 

 parent in a particular locality, to which it seems to 

 me the term indigenous ought properly to be 

 restricted ; otherwise, it is not easy to see what 

 limits should be placed to this time immemorial. 



which is to decide the indigenousness of a plant. If 

 I find a tulip growing in the middle of Salisbury 

 Plain, the plant may, for all I know, have been 

 growing there from time immemorial. That other 

 people did not notice it before, is no logical proof 

 that it was not there. Of course this is an ex- 

 treme case, but it may illustrate what I mean. Eor 

 it would seem to me, with all due deference to more 

 experienced naturalists, that the point of view in 

 which we should regard any rare plant is that in 

 which even Mr. Lees would unquestionably regard 

 that tulip — namely, that it had some artificial or 

 accidental mode of introduction, until the contrary 

 has been proved ; that we have even more reason to 

 assume the llomanlegionary toiling over the Alps with 

 a bit of Astrantia carefully stowed away among his 

 impedimenta in a choice bit of pottery, and piously 

 planting it in his ornamental garden on the Weo 

 Edge, in Stokesay parish, than to resort to the 

 mysterious agency called by that beautiful term 

 indigenous — that deus ex machind which my ex- 

 cellent and learned friend is so glad to invoke to 

 solve his difficulties whenever it suits his purposes. 



J. D. La Touche. 



THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF 

 THE INSECTS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



ON ;the 25th of February last Mr. Edvnn 

 Birchall read a paper on this subject to the 

 Leeds Naturalists' Field-Club and Scientific Associ- 

 ation, with the object of offering some suggestions 

 as to whence the insects of the British islands have 

 been derived. 



Fossil insects were first adverted to, and the 

 earliest known forms from the Carboniferous rocks 

 described. Insects have been in England most 

 abundantly found in rocks of the Wealden and 

 Oolitic periods : a large proportion of these are 

 small coleoptera, and mostly of modern genera, and 

 some cannot be distinguished from species still 

 existing in England. "The poor beetle that we 

 tread upon " surely deserves a better fate, when we 

 consider that he has walked the earth unchanged 

 since the days of the Iguanodon and Pterodactyle — 

 compared with his, how short the pedigree of the 

 proudest noble of mankind itself : to the Dor Bee- 

 tle {Oeotrupes stercorarius) probably belongs the 

 title of " the oldest inhabitant of earth." The Le- 

 pidoptera of the Secondary period in England, so 

 far as is known, were of a tropical character, and it 

 seems useless to look for traces of any of our present 

 forms until after the Glacial epoch : the conditions 

 of climate during that period of desolation must 

 have been such as to destroy or compel the migra- 

 tion southward of all existing species. In the main 

 Mr. Birchall agreed with the propositions laid down 

 by the late Professor Edward Forbes in his essay 



