LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. lxxxi 
ducted observations would be of the greatest interest both at our 
meetings and in our publications. The remarkable success which 
has attended the long-continued, persevering and well-combined ob- 
servations of Mr. Darwin should stimulate others to follow in the 
same track; and much as he has disclosed, much as he has still in 
store for us, his every page shows how far even he is yet from having 
exhausted the subject. I do not refer to those speculations on the 
origin of species, which have excited so much controversy ; for the 
discussion of that question, when considered only with reference to 
the comparative plausibility of opposite hypotheses, is beyond the 
province of our Society. Attempts to bring it forward at our meet- 
ings were very judiciously checked by my predecessor in this Chair, 
and I certainly should be sorry to see our time taken up by theo- 
retical arguments not accompanied by the disclosure of new facts or 
observations. But we must all admire that patient study of the 
habits of life, with that great power of combining facts, which has 
revealed to us so much of surprising novelty in the economy of 
nature. The wonderful contrivances for the cross-fertilization of 
Orchids, so graphically detailed in Mr. Darwin’s new work, and 
which rival all that had been previously observed in the singular 
economy of insect life, had been hitherto unsuspected even by those 
botanists who had specially devoted themselves to that family. And 
this is but a sample of that extraordinary variety of facts collected 
by him and brought to bear upon his theories, which must be patent 
to every impartial reader of his works, whilst all who have had an 
opportunity of watching his modus operandi are well aware that he 
never brings forward an observation without taking every precaution 
to ensure its accuracy, thoroughly sifting every circumstance that 
appears to militate against it. It is indeed to be hoped that, with- 
out waiting for the completion of the great work that is to embody 
the whole series of his piéces justificatives, Mr. Darwin will continue 
to illustrate separate portions of his subject, each one of which is 
sufficient to give a lasting name to its author. In the meantime 
let every lover of nature who, from his residence in the country, may 
have leisure and opportunities of observing, follow in the track thus 
opened out. If he will carefully watch the gradual development 
and daily habits, at all seasons of the year, of the animal or vegetable 
productions which are around him in the greatest abundance, 
he will detect many a curious arrangement by which nature, in 
causing animals and plants, or different species of each, to act and 
react on each other, provides for the perpetuation of species, races, 
