BRITISH ASSOCIATION, MEETING AT EXETER. 291 
tions put upon them. That he could not do, and he should therefore 
retire.—Dr. Wilkes considered Mr. Darwin a great observer, but by no 
means an inductive reasoner.—Mr. E. Vivian pointed out that all the 
old landmarks had been removed, and proceeded to make a few state- 
ments with regard to Kent’s Cavern, He believed scientific and reli- 
gious men differed in degree, and not in principle. There was no 
possibility of stopping short of man being contemporaneous with the 
fossil animals, and, in fact, preglacial. He had always believed that 
oses had written a cosmogouy, and he did not yet doubt that it 
would be in some way reconciled with science. "There had been a 
very wide interchange of species, and when they admitted development 
they must have a number of separate acts of creation, of which there 
was no evidence.—Mr. Wallace did not consider that any one of the 
the papers ought to have been read in that place. If the opponents of 
Darwinism wished to come forward, let them bring either new facts or 
new arguments.— The President considered the most pertinent obser- 
vations that had been made with regard to Darwinism came from Mr. 
Vivian. He had rightly said that the great difficulty was to account 
for existing animals. How were they to account for their difference 
from former ones? Either the elephant must be a spontaneous crea- 
tion, or was the result of descent. Neither of the writers of the papers 
knew what Darwinism was, although really it might have been ex- 
pected that they would have informed themselves about it before they 
wrote.—Dr. M'Cann explained that he had read the books to which 
Professor Huxley had referred, and said, moreover, that the question 
had been shirked. 
* On an Alteration in the Structure of Lychnis dioica, observed in 
connection with the Development of a Parasitic Fungus." By Miss 
'hile residing near Accrington, in Lancashire, Miss Becker 
was struck with the remarkable appearance of certain plants of Lychnis 
dioica, which, instead of the usual straw-coloured anthers, displayed a 
purple mark in the centre of the flower, giving the effect of a handsome 
dark eye. Further examination showed that, contrary to the usual 
babit of the plant, many of them were bisexual, each flower containing 
a pistil as well as stamens ; except for the shortness of the styles, these 
pistils were as well developed as those of ordinary female plants. In 
1863 she sent a few flowers to Mr. Charles Darwin, who, after 
submitting the flower to microscopic investigation, wrote, ‘ The 
