THE DARWIN COMMKMORATION. 183 



In some cases, Dr. Bree, with the keenest irony, adds no comment of his own, 

 but contents himself with quoting a sentence verhatim. from Mr. Darwin. 



All the authorities who have recently written on the subject are carefully cited 

 in opposition to Mr. Darwin's views, and Agassiz, Owen, and others, are quoted 

 continually in the pages of this volume. 



Two paragraphs, anent " blind cave-beetles," are then put into 

 juxtaposition, (1) Darwin's statement thereon, (2) Murray's explanation 

 from the Edinhuriih Xew Philofiophical Journal; Stainton then adds — 



Entomologists generally, we believe, will prefer the quotation from Mr. Murray 

 to that from Mr. Darwin. 



But Stainton evidently did not feel that all was right, or that the 

 last word had been said by entomologists on the question of "the 

 origin of species by natural selection," even when some of the facts 

 had been "held up to ridicule," and we find him quoting (Ent. Weekly 

 Intelligencer, ix., pp. 199-200; x.,pp. 89-40) extracts at length from Dr. 

 Asa Gray's sympathetic paper, " Free Examination of Darwm's Treatise 

 and of its American Eeviewers " {Atlantic MontJiUj, 1860) and giving 

 Gray's summarised reasons for " the persistent recurrence of various 

 hypotheses that animals and plants have somehow been derived from 

 others, as gleaned from a study of Darwin's book and a general glance 

 at the then state of the natural sciences." These reasons (o/*. cit., pp. 

 39-40) are very well put and are as cogent to-day as when they were 

 formulated. But the theory was evidently still distasteful to our 

 entomological friends, and they fixed on a skit that appeared in Black- 

 iroocVs Ma//a^ine, May, 1861, that should keep backsliders in the old 

 path. It appeared in the Intelligencer, x., pp. 78-79, and reads as 

 follows :■ — 



The Okigin of Species. 

 A New Song. 

 Have you heard of this question the doctors among. 

 Whether all things living from a Monad have sprung ? 

 This has lately been said, and it now shall be sung. 



Which nobody can deny. 

 Not one or two ages sufficed for the feat. 

 It required a few millions the change to complete; 

 But now the thing's done and it looks rather neat. 



Which nobody can deny. 

 The original Monad, our great-great grandsire, 

 To little or nothing at first did aspire; 

 But at last to have offspring it took a desire. 



Which nobody can deny. 

 The Monad becoming father or mother. 

 By budding or bursting produced such another ; 

 And shortly there followed a sister or brother, 



Which nobody can deny. 

 But Monad no longer designates them well — 

 They're a cluster of molecules now, or a cell ; 

 But which of the two, doctors only can tell. 



Which nobody can deny. 

 These beings, increasing, grew buoyant with life. 

 And each to itself was both husband and wife ; 

 And at first, strange to say, the two lived without strife. 



Which nobody can deny. 

 But such crowding together soon troublesome grew. 

 And they thought a division of labour would do ; 

 So their sexual system was parted in two. 



Which nobody can deny. 

 Thus Plato supposes that, severed by fate, 

 Human halves run about each in search of its mate, 

 Never pleased till they gain their original state, 

 Which nobody can deny. 



