SOME NEW ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



By W. P. Pycraft, F. L. S., F. Z. S. 



[With 6 plates] 



It may be that I am expected tonight to say something about the 

 fauna, or the flora, of Norfolk, or of both ; but abler men than I in 

 this chair have already well-nigh exhausted these themes. Yet, what 

 I am going to say has indeed a bearing on both, though it refers by 

 no means especially to the natural history of our beloved country. 

 Wliat I would call the first installment of a new, and more intensive 

 study of this history has been given us in that most inspiring volume 

 recently issued by this society, on the work which has been done 

 at Scolt Head Island. It was a model of wdiat such investigations 

 should be ; and some may think that the last w^ord in this connection, 

 so far as Scolt Head is concerned, has been said. But I want to con- 

 vince you that really no more than the foundation has been laid for 

 a much wider conception of what is taking place, not only here, but 

 wherever animal or plant life exists. 



I was particularly interested in what was said in that volume on 

 "environment" because, it seems to me, that its importance has been 

 overestimated, both by zoologists and botanists. 



If we are to make any real progress in our search for what I will, 

 for the moment, call the "ferment" which finds expression in the evo- 

 lution of the different types of animals, and of the evolution as well 

 of species, we must dare to question the faith that is in us in regard 

 to that part which we are told is played by "environment." We have 

 come to use this word with the same assurance as the naturalists of 

 a generation ago used "natural selection." Let me hasten to add that 

 I do not wish to imply that natural selection is dead ; that is by no 

 means true, but we loaded on to its back more than it ought to have 

 been asked to bear. It w^as, and most unreasonably, regarded as the 

 key to the mysteries of evolution. When, at last, it was realized 

 that this was not so, new trails were taken up, as if in the hope that, 



1 Address by the president of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society delivered 

 at the sixty-sixth annual meeting of the society held at Museum Castle, Apr. 6, 1935. 

 Reprinted by permission from the Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' 

 Society, vol. 14, pt. 1, 1935. 



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