PRINCIPALLY IN THK NEIGHBOURHOOD OF KELSTKAO. T 93 



that two or three droughts spread over consecutive summers might 

 completely extinguish certain forms. 



The absence of spring characters in 1893 was greatly due to the 

 lack of weeds. There were but few l)uttercups and scarcely any 

 daisies to enrich the brownish green tint that prevailed in the meadows. 

 The weeds, in fact, were relegated to more congenial times. This 

 brings us to notice more particularly how much is involved in that 

 word "relegated." The most casual observer would have noticed in 

 the September month a number of species that had struggled into 

 bloom about four months after date, and he would probably have 

 noticed that some were blooming for the second time. This means 

 that the roots of many plants had been subjected to a great 

 strain, and if that strain had been much intensified only the hardier 

 ones would have survived; or, to express its equivalent in other 

 terms, it might be said that the tendency of the season was to con- 

 vert biennials into annuals, and all plants into perennials. 



Meteorologists, I believe, know of no reason why the next 

 summer should not imitate its predecessor ; and, indeed, why anti- 

 cyclonal conditions should not prevail for several successive 

 summers. If such were to be the case, we should have a lesson 

 taught to us on the flexibility of organisms. It would then become 

 evident to all that a change of conditions involved changes of 

 habits of plants, to say nothing else. It is these abnormal seasons 

 that to the careful observer are the best exponents of the doctrine 

 of specific change. In fact, one has only to take a standpoint 

 sufficiently high, and to convert years into centuries or ages, to see 

 that all specific and generic changes are the prototypes of proto- 

 plasmic change; and when we can forecast the rest or direction of 

 the one, we shall be in a position to say something of the other. 

 These great problems are controlled or affected by the passing 

 seasons that slip by without our notice, and die and seldom give a 

 sign. 



The summer, not generally being a season of great rainfall with 

 us, it might be surmised that the springs would not be affected much 

 above the ordinary, and where the water-bearing stratum was of 

 sufficient depth there appears to have been but little scarcity. The 

 rains of summer, however, in an ordinary course keep the surface 

 moist and the air heavily-laden with aqueous vapour — witness the 

 dews of spring and autumn. This quantity of moisture was almost 

 wholly abstracted this summer, and so the ground at and near the 



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