[o6 



HA RD WICKK S SCIENCE- G OS SIP, 



agitating the minds of the present generation of 

 biologists, and it seemed to me that a sketch of the 

 theory in question, and its bearings upon the problem 

 of the factors of organic evohition might be of con- 

 siderable interest to those of your readers who have 

 not the time or inclination for a thorough study of 

 the question. I hope now to be able to carry out 

 my original scheme and contribute the papers alluded 

 to. 



My immediate object, however, in the present 

 instance, is to enter a strong protest against the very 

 unfair and misleading way in which the question has 

 been now attacked in your pages (Science-Gossip 

 for February, pp. 25-30). 



Mrs. Alice Bodington sets out by deploring that 

 Mr. Wallace has been " hardly, if at all, influenced by 

 the discoveries of the last quarter of a century," and 

 concludes by stigmatising the Neo-Darwinians as an 

 " unprogressive school which arrogates to itself the 

 right of claiming to be his (Darwin's) special 

 disciples." Between these two startling statements 

 we have a great deal of talk about "inherent" and 

 "internal" forces, "initiating variation" or "ren- 

 dering it possible," and about many other equally 

 curious notions of the phenomena of heredity and 

 variation. There is hardly a line of argument in the 

 article, only a series of vague denunciations of the 

 supDosed one-sided views of the Neo-Darwinians, 

 founded on a series of the most astounding miscon- 

 ceptions of what those views are, and of the real 

 questions at issue. 



It hardly appears worth while to go through the 

 paper pointing out these misconceptions in detail, 

 but it may be as well to notice a few. Mrs. Boding- 

 ton says "we are gravely asked to believe that all 

 these modifications are the result of a series of 

 accidents occurring generation after generation with 

 results more and more marked, yet all uninherited 

 and accidental ! " What does this mean ? Nobody 

 in his senses ever asked anyone to believe such an 

 astounding travesty of the theory of natural selection. 

 Surely, it is at this period of time unnecessary to 

 point out that the word "accidental" applied to 

 congenital variations, merely means that the original 

 occurrence of any particular variation has no reference 

 to the purpose which it serves, and which enables it 

 to be fixed by natural selection. Again the in- 

 heritance of such variations is an experimentally 

 established fact — a fact, moreover, on which the 

 whole theory of natural selection rests. What 

 we do deny is the inheritance of a character ac- 

 quired during the lifetime of the individual. Mrs. 

 Bodington has entirely lost sight of the distinction 

 between these two kinds of characters, which is the 

 whole point of our position, with the absurd result 

 that she talks about being asked to believe that 

 "accidental" (congenital) variations are "unin- 

 herited," and about " prepossessions against he- 

 redity ! " 



Again, no one in his senses stated the " Law of 

 the action of the environment upon irritable 

 Protoplasm" to be "non-existent." All that is 

 contended is that the effects of such action are not, 

 among the metazoa, transmitted, as such, to the 

 offspring. 



Professor Weismann does not consider that he has 

 proved his theory of heredity and variation at all, in 

 his laboratory or elsewhere, nor did the wildest 

 enthusiast ever contend that laboratory work will 

 "explain everything." That his theory is "con- 

 tradicted by the evidence of paleontologists " is 

 impossible, since it is impossible that palseontological 

 evidence can touch such a theory. 



Mrs. Bodington apparently refuses to believe in 

 "a predisposition to point on the part of a germ," 

 yet it is sufficiently obvious that such a predisposition 

 must exist in the germ, however it has got there, or 

 else how is this character transmitted from parent to 

 offspring ? 



Mrs. Bodington says of Professor Weismann's 

 statement that " the inheritance of acquired characters 

 has never been proved either by means of direct 

 observation, or by experiment," that "such an 

 assertion takes one's breath away ; " but she carefully 

 refrains from stating a single instance in which such 

 inheritance has been proved. It is no answer to 

 inform us that Darwin believed in such inheritance, 

 that his belief increased somewhat in later years, 

 that Mr. Herbert Spencer believes this form of 

 inheritance to have been still more important. We 

 know these things, but we are still waiting for proof 

 of such inheritance — proof such as we have in 

 abundance as to the inheritance of congenital 

 variations. 



As to the right of those who deny that we caii 



accept the inheritance of acquired characters as a 



factor in evolution to claim that they are advocating 



pure Darwinism, we can only say that they are laying 



still more stress on the factor which Darwin first 



pointed out, which he always believed to be far the 



most important one, and which is for ever connected 



with his name. 



A. G. Tansley. 



Trinity College, Catnbridge. 



THE BIRDS OF FORT AUGUSTUS. 

 By Mervyn Wolseley. 



THE neighbourhood of Fort Augustus is well 

 adapted for birds of every kind, from the great 

 golden eagle to the tiny jenny wren. 



The silent, rocky glens and steep mountain sides 

 form perfect fortresses for the golden eagle and 

 lordly peregrine. The woods and plantations afford 

 a safe resting-place for the smaller birds ; while the 

 heather-covered moors abound in grouse and black- 

 cock. Flocks of pigeons dwell among the wooded 

 glens, and the swamps and marshes are filled with 



