168 NATURAL SCIENCE [September 



checked by natural selection." Secondly, the following are Darwin's 

 words with reference to the inheritance of characters which are no 

 longer useful : — " No doubt the definite action of changed con- 

 ditions . . . have all produced an effect, probably a great effect, 

 independently of any advantage thus gained. ... I fully admit that 

 many structures are now of no direct use to their possessors, and 

 may never have been of any use to their progenitors." . . . He 

 mentions the webbed feet of upland geese, etc. ..." With these 

 important exceptions, we may conclude that the structure of every 

 living creature either now is, or was formerly, of some direct or 

 indirect use to its possessor," l He would thus include all rudi- 

 mentary organs as having been formerly useful, but now useless ; of 

 these he remarks that rudimentary organs from being useless are not 

 regulated by natural selection, and hence are variable. If they be 

 so in the animal kingdom, they are not so in the vegetable ; e.g., the 

 staminodes and rudiments of ovaries of flowers are constant in form 

 to each species, genus or order which is characterised by them, 

 respectively; as, e.g., Er odium, Samolus, Mercurialis, Parietaria, 

 Valerianeae, Myrsineae, etc., and are recognised as permanent 

 diagnostic characters. 



Injurious Characters. — In many flowers there have been 

 acquired and retained by heredity, what may be called by Darwin's 

 term "disservice," or even "injurious" characters. For if, e.g., the 

 use of flowers be to set good seed, then anything which tends to 

 hinder that process is obviously injurious. Such occurs in the 

 structure of the flowers of most orchids, and in many adaptations 

 to insect fertilisation, as dichogamy, protandry, polymorphism, etc., 

 whenever they tend to bar self-fertilisation. 



For it need hardly be observed now, that Darwin's assumption 

 from the numerous adaptations in flowers for intercrossing by 

 insects, that self-fertilisation was " injurious," was based on a quite 

 erroneous deduction altogether. The fact being that in nature 

 autogamous, or self-fertilised plants, are by far the most prolific, 

 perfectly healthy, most abundant in individuals, and most widely 

 dispersed. 2 



On the other hand, all special adaptations to secure self- 

 fertilisation are obviously useful, are quite as numerous and 

 excellent in the adjustment of the organs, as are those for inter- 



crossing. 3 



Now it is worth while observing that the result of such injurious 



1 "Origin, etc.," p. 160. 



2 The reader is referred (should he require it) to the writer's papers on "Self- 

 fertilisation," Trans. Linn. Soc. 1877; Review of Darwin's "Cross and Self-fertilisa- 

 tion of Flowers" in "Gardener's Chronicle" (1877); and "The Origin of Plant 

 Structures." , . 



3 See Kerner & Oliver's "Natural History of Plants;" "Autogamy, vol. n., 



p. 331, n; 



