228 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



By bud of nobler race : this is an art 



Which does mend nature, change it rather, but 



The art itself is nature. 



Perdita. So it is. 



PoLixENES. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors. 

 And do not call them bastards." 



Here we have brought out very distinctly the effect of cross- 

 fertilization iu flowers, the result of grafting and the development 

 of varieties. Better than that, we have here the recognition of that 

 tendency in organisms to vary that lies at the very root of the de- 

 velopment of species. !N^atural selection, survival of the fittest, were 

 impossible were it not true that " Nature is made better by no mean 

 but Nature makes that mean " ; or, as it is more broadly stated a 

 few lines further on, " This is an art which does mend Nature, change 

 it rather, but the art itself is Nature." I consider these very re- 

 markable statements when we reflect on the time in which they were 

 written. Darwin, in 1860, does but unfold the thought*. The selec- 

 tion which Shakespeare notes as practiced by gardeners, and a similar 

 selection seen in the world of domestic animals, gave Darwin his cue 

 of natural selection. The beauty of Darwin's thesis lies in the fact 

 that the process is natural, and such is Shakespeare's dictum. Later 

 on, lines 112-128, Perdita brings out another remarkable observation 

 that has only lately been confirmed by the conclusions of science: 



"... Now my fairest friend, 

 I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might 

 Become your time of day ; and yours ; and yours ; 

 That wear upon your virgin branches yet 

 Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina, 

 For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall 

 From Dis's wagon ! daffodils, 

 That come before the swallow dares, and take 

 The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, 

 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 

 Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses. 

 That die unmarried, ere they can behold 

 Bright Phoebus in his strength — a malady 

 Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and 

 The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds; 

 The flower-de-luce being one ! " 



Primroses are dimorphic — i. e., on the same species we find flowers 

 of different sorts. These are complete, but in any particular flower 

 the essential organs fail of adaptation to each other — the style in one 

 too long, in another too short, to receive pollen from the stamens 

 of its own flower. For fertilization such flowers are absolutely de- 

 pendent upon the assistance brought by insect visitors. Perdita's 

 primrose is Primula veris, the early primrose, " that takes the winds 



