1880.1 



AND HORTICULTURIST, 



93 



he goes along, he does not do justice to Mr. Dar- 

 win's real views. Mr. Darwin, as most of us 

 know now, has made manj- incidental errors, 

 and his inferences are not always sustained by 

 the light of what has been observed in later 

 times. But on the other hand since Darwin 

 wrote there are quite as many new facts brought 

 out to strengthen his views, as there are those 

 which weaken them, — but of these our author evi- 

 dently knows nothing. Like a lawyer pleading 

 on a case against Mr. Darwin, he naturally seizes 

 on every weak point, as if it were one of great im- 

 portance. When Mr. Darwin, for instance, tells 

 us that a certain belief has prevailed " from the 

 time of Columella, who wrote shortly after the 

 Christian era to the present day," Mr. O'Neill 

 takes occasion to sa3'that "the impression, with 

 the writer, has ever been, that the 'Christian 

 era ' lasted, at least, \mi\\ the origin of species 

 was published." Every one but Mr. O'Neill 

 may understand that Mr. Darwin inadvertently 

 left out " began" after " era ;" and that his "im- 

 pression" is of no sort of consequence as an ar- 

 gument "against Darwin." The whole work 

 indeed strikes us as of the class with Archbishop 

 Whately's effort to prove the nou-existence of 

 Napoleon Buonaparte. It is a clever but uncon- 

 vincing work. His line of argument is that there 

 is no feature that marks what we call a new va- 

 riety, that did not exist in some ancestor more 

 or less remote, — that the types or " first pa- 

 rents " of all existing species had every cha- 

 racter in one that now appears severally in 

 many forms. In other words that there has been 

 a continual suppression of parts, and that it is 

 only by regaining occasionally what has been 

 lost, that there comes in what we call a new va^ 

 riety. In other words, as we understand Mr. 

 O'Neill's view it is quite possible for a monkey 

 to be evolved from a man, but not a man from a 

 monkey ! 



Of course every student of Mr. Darwin's works 

 knows that he does consider much of the change 

 of form we see as due to reversion and suppres- 

 sion, — but he also knows what is never referred to 

 by Mr. O'Neill, that Mr. Darwin's works show the 

 entrance on the stage of wholly new characters, 

 which we have no reason to believe ever had an 

 existence before. For instance, of late years we 

 have come to know that the Salix Babylonica, 

 sprung from Salix Japonica, and there is no pro- 

 bability, so far as any mind can suggest, that the 

 peculiar characteristics of the former, ever had 

 a prior existence till it sprung from the latter. 



Then there is another form of willow known as 

 Salix annularis, the ring-leaved willow, which 

 we know sprung from Salix Babylonica. Its pe- 

 culiarity never existed in any probability in the 

 former. Now this Salix annularis, has within 

 two cases only that the writer of this knows of, 

 reverted after many years to the S. Babylonica. 

 It retained its characters for some half of a cen- 

 tury before a branch betrayed its origin. Here 

 is the entrance of an entirely new charac- 

 ter, and a reversion to the old one. It shows 

 that both are true, and this Mr. Darwin has well 

 illustrated. 



We do not believe that Mr. Darwin's views of 

 reversion, intercrossing, natural selection, and 

 other agencies always cover the ground he claims 

 for them. As a student of nature, the writer of 

 this has often had to object ; but that they are 

 sound in the main we believe, and a careful read- 

 ing of Mr. O'Neill's book has not in the least 

 weakened our faith in them. 



The Cotton Worm. By Prof. C. Y. Riley. 

 Published by the Department of the Interior. — 

 The United States Government stands high in 

 the estimation of the people of other nations, 

 by the aid it gives to scientific explorations and 

 investigations, and it is chiefly because of its in- 

 terest in the development of the progressive 

 paths of peace, while the rest of the world is 

 mainly occupied with the arts of war, that popu- 

 lation, capital and enterprise are so freely poured 

 in upon us. Indeed, there is very little left for 

 a United States Government to do but to look 

 after the protection of the people from internal 

 enemies since it has no foreign foes to menace 

 them. And we have no greater foe than ignor- 

 ance, — and especially that class of ignorance 

 which only exact scientific knowledge can destroy. 



This work of Prof. Riley and the Entomologi- 

 cal Commission is one which will do much to 

 maintain the excellent reputation of our gov- 

 ernment, to which we have already referred ; 

 and it will do much towards curbing the destruc- 

 tive power of one of our national enemies, — the 

 cotton worm. Indeed, a study of this work will 

 not be of value to the cotton raiser only, but 

 will expand the view of all engaged in the war 

 against noxious insects of many kinds. So far as 

 the cotton worm is concerned, we have here given 

 the history of the insect copiously illustrated in 

 all its stages of growth, as also of others which 

 have any possible relation or connection with 

 it. Also all sorts of machines and contrivances 

 by which the insect may be caught and destroy- 



