286 Obituary Notice. 



acquaintance, which included many who were not prepared 

 to accept the doctrine which was associated with his 

 name. 



He was a naturalist of great observation, and continued 

 to study natural phenomena during his whole life. His 

 theory of progressive development has received much 

 attention and has given rise to much discussion. As Mr 

 Spottiswoode remarked before the Royal Society, he lived 

 to a good old age, to see the work of his life enthusias- 

 tically recognised. 



Darwin was highly prized, not only as a physiological 

 botanist, but as an excellent cultivator. Mr Isaac Ander- 

 son-Henry corresponded with him for many years, and I 

 have perused with much interest and pleasure the excellent 

 and kind replies sent by Darwin. I subjoin extracts from 

 some of these letters : — 



" January 20, 1863. — I may mention that this 



past spring I tried again two crosses on Primula, with the 

 same result rather more strongly marked, and that I have 

 gone on now for three generations, breeding them what I 

 call homomorphically, with some curious results, which 

 I shall publish whenever I have time. I have sent a 

 paper on Linum to Linn. Soc. ; when it is published I will 

 do myself the pleasure of sending to you a copy, and it 

 will, I should think, be in good time for your experiments. 

 I cannot say how glad I am that you will make some 

 experiments on this subject. It does not absolutely follow, 

 in making a cross between distinct species, that the same 

 rule would follow in the fertility of the pollen. I hope 

 that you will try and mark separately (excluding insects, 

 as you know better than I do the necessity), the tioo kinds 

 of pollen of one species on the stigma of the other, and see 

 in making hybrids what the difference is in fertility, and 

 in the character of the hybrid seedlings. 



" This would be an entirely new field for observation 

 and discovery. You will see in my paper that some species 

 of Linum are not dimorphic, and are self-fertile ; and so it 

 is in some other genera. 



" You refer to L. riibrum ; I am not a botanist, and have 

 called one of the species on which I have experimented 



