XXIV PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



certain flo-wers alluded to by Dr. Masters at one of our last winter 

 meetings, the dedoublement by which Moquin-Tandon explained the 

 position of the four longer stamens of Crucifers as being in fact one 

 pair of stamens, each divided into two, a theory carried further by 

 Meschaeff in a recent number of the Moscow Bulletin, who regards 

 the four petals as one pair, each similarly divided into two, esta- 

 blishing the binal decussate phyllotaxy throughout the flower, and 

 several other anomalies which have long been under discussion. 



There is, perhaps, no one of Mr. Darwin's works which within the 

 last ten years has called out a greater number of direct observers 

 than his essay " On the various contrivances by which Orchids are 

 fertilized by Insects." Sprengel's and other previous observations 

 had been too little known or held too much in contempt to induce 

 any followers ; but now the spell was broken, the facts brought 

 forward in a clear and attractive style were so new and curious as 

 to caU. for general attention ; and whilst they might, on the one 

 hand, supply many a datum in support of the theory of evolution, 

 they could yet be followed up without directly interfering with 

 cherished doctrines of specific and local creation. The consequence 

 has been an accumulation of most numerous and varied observations 

 made in this country as on the Continent, in South Africa as in 

 South America, published in a great variety of detached papers in 

 Journals and Transactions in four or five different languages. It had 

 become already a matter of difficulty to ascertain whether any appa- 

 rently new and startling complication which presented itseK to the 

 eye had not, in fact, been already recorded, or how far it favoured or 

 interfered with any general laws which might have been already 

 laid down. A few more general essays had, indeed, been drawn up 

 by Delpino in Italy, by F. Hildebrand in Germany, and by Severn 

 Axell (in a work I have not myself met with) in Sweden — all three 

 from numerous and valuable personal observations, but aU three, 

 especially Delpino's and Axell's, with a tendency to launch pre- 

 maturely into theories and hypotheses. We have now, however, 

 within the last fortnight, received from Germany a general work of 

 a very different character. Hermann Mueller's ' Befruchtung der 

 Blumen durch Insecten' proves to be just such a repertory and 

 digest of recorded facts supported by original observations as is 

 become absolutely indispensable for the further pursuit of inquiry in 

 the same direction. The author is brother to Fritz Mueller, of 

 Desterro iu South Brazil, so well known as a judicious and reliable 

 observer, and as a warm supporter of Darwinian theories ; and 



