DITBLIN NATURAL HISTOBT 80CI15TY. 185 



But is not the force of the argument completely lost when it is consi- 

 dered that, perhaps, if one had the same means of judging, the very same 

 opinion would be pronounced upon them, viz., that they were the one 

 and the same ? There would be no difficulty in settling the matter, if, 

 as the President asserted, the fructification of the ferns was a most 

 constant character, one neither affected by the difference of growth or 

 habitat, and one that would ever enable the botanist to arrive at a just 

 and certain appreciation of their species. "Would that this were the 

 case ! but every day's experience only proves the extreme fallacy of the 

 opinion. 



I would here like most emphatically to deny that Mr. Bentham " has 

 raised a host of labour, which years cannot accomplish." On the con- 

 trary, he has saved us and all future British botanists from the dire 

 labour of ever tr}dng to know, and never knowing, an host of bad species, 

 and there is at last a chance of the blackberry of our young days being 

 still the blackberry of our maturer years. Sincerely is it to be trusted 

 that still further enlarged views will shrivel (to use the President's 

 words, slightly adapted) all false specific distinctions into nonentity, 

 knowing that they will then render the science more pleasing and much 

 more intelligible. Leaving Professor Harvey to defend the introduction 

 of Parkeria, we pass on to briefly answer a few further statements. 



But the whole of this matter resolves itself into the query suggested 

 by Dr. Kinahan's concluding sentence, i. e., What is a species ? It would 

 be obviously unfair on such a critical subject to take an author's defini- 

 tion from the pages of any newspaper, especially when through some 

 typographical error it woidd equally be a definition of any monstrosity 

 * which possessed a certain definite arrangement of organs, which being' 

 hideously * characteristic,' it ' was not' desirable should be * possessed by 

 any other form as an entirety.' But if species do exist, the extreme 

 difficulty of defining them is almost enough to deter any one from criti- 

 cally attempting it. I must imagine, therefore, that you all have some 

 idea of what is popularly called a species, and that you are equally aware 

 that a species is liable to variations — these brought about either natu- 

 rally by some change of climate or position, or artificially. I may also 

 be allowed to state that it is almost proven that a variety, once estab- 

 lished, is incapable of returning to its original condition : it will either 

 die out or fonn a new variety. Of course monstrosities are altogether 

 excluded from this calculation in the vegetable as well as in the animal 

 kingdom. Thus the cauliflower (neither a monstrosity nor hybrid form) 

 will continue to ripen its seed, and perpetuate its variety for ever, 

 without in a single instance thinking of returning to the original Bras- 

 8tca oleracea, though it may possibly form new varieties of cauliflower; 

 and we must wait for a long time ere we procure the original species of 

 the dog, or any other domestic animal, by any of our present varieties 

 giving birth to it Thus much, in passing, to make use of anon in the 

 question of these two varieties, and as it occurred to me when noticing 

 the definition of species, which, of coui'se, had it been perfectly com- 

 plete, would have almost settled the question. 



