HARD WI CKE ' S S CIE NCE-GOS SIP. 



25 



SOME PROBABILITIES RESPECTING ORGANIC SPECIES. 



By W. S. PALMER. 



OWEVER some 

 people may decry 

 Mr. Darwin's work, 

 "The Origin of 

 Species," as a the- 

 ory, the perform- 

 ance cannot surely 

 be denied the high- 

 est merit. It has 

 been said that it is 

 the greatest cyclo- 

 paedia of science 

 that has been pro- 

 duced since the 

 times of Cuvier and 

 Von Baer. It is 

 certainly the great- 

 est scientific work 

 that we have had 

 for many years. 

 Principles that were only partially recognised, and 

 facts that were scarcely known, are here clearly de- 

 fined and definitely settled. Laws that were not 

 understood to be laws have been shown to be such, 

 and such is the law of variation. Variation has long 

 been believed in as a mere freak of nature, often a 

 monstrosity and nothing more. But Mr. Darwin, by 

 the able and masterly way in which he has treated 

 this subject, has shown that there is such a thing as 

 a law of variation : that it is amongst the most im- 

 portant of nature's functions. 



I suppose we are all familiar enough with what 

 is commonly called the heart's-ease or pansy, which 

 Linnoeus has put under the genus Viola. This 

 beautiful plant is propagated very largely by the 

 dissemination of its pollen by the means of insects, 

 especially the bee. It has been said that the more 

 old maids there are in a village, the more plentiful 

 will be this flower, the heart's-ease, and this extra- 

 ordinary and seemingly absurd statement is well 

 enough proved. For old maids are famous for their 

 partiality to the feline species, and cats, I suppose 

 everybody knows, are celebrated for their propensity 

 No. 182. 



for mice. Now the mice are well-known to make 

 dreadful depredations in the bee-houses, and the bees, 

 naturally enough, soon quit their uncomfortable 

 lodgings. Hence the heart's-ease suffers greatly. But 

 if the cats eat the mice, the bees are left alone and 

 untormented, and gathering their honey from the 

 flowers of the neart's-ease, flitting from flower to 

 flower, the pollen is scattered and the safety of the 

 species is secured. But this is by the way. Well, 

 these busy little bees unconsciously are fulfilling a 

 great office of nature. Whilst they sip the honey 

 from each flower they are at the same time spreading 

 the germs of future generations. 



But not only this. The bee is not so particular in 

 its choice, and a blue and yellow pansy will suit its 

 purpose as well as one of purple colour only. Or a 

 flower that is nearly entirely yellow is as useful for 

 its purpose as any other. From flower to flower, 

 then, on it goes, and stops at this purple heart's-ease, 

 and with its body covered with the grains of pollen 

 of a yellow flower, thus mixes that of the yellow 

 with the purple variety. What will be the result ? 

 We cannot say ; but when the seeds of the plant are 

 sown and quickened, and spring into new plants, and 

 bear flowers on their own account, then we find some 

 beautiful variety, perhaps only in colour, perhaps 

 something more, for the yellow heart's-ease, besides 

 the colour, may have had some other peculiarity not 

 common to both the purple flower and itself. Some 

 irregularity we will say. This irregularity is in- 

 creased in the next generation, or it is altered, or 

 it is confirmed ; it may be any of these, it may be 

 the latter. We will say it is the latter. We have 

 then a different colour from the mother plant, and 

 we have an irregularity confirming ; and, therefore, 

 in this variety, no longer an irregularity, but a fixed 

 peculiarity. But " specific differences take their 

 rise from any circumstance wherein plants of the 

 same genus are found to disagree." It is required 

 of that circumstance that it be constant. We have 

 supposed the original irregularity to be confirmed, 

 and therefore surely a constant peculiarity. What 

 have we here then ? We have proceeding at first 



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