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writer must be given. The result of the award is to be made known 

 in the ' Bonplandia' newspaper of the ITth June, 1854, and the suc- 

 cesful essay will be printed in the Transactions of the Academy 

 Naturae Curiosorum, Full particulars will be found in the ' AUge- 

 meine Gartenzeitung ' for the 30th July, of the present year. 



" Since it is obvious that no special experiments can now be insti- 

 tuted for the purpose of testing this theory, the attention of the 

 essayists will necessarily be confined to a diligent accumulation of evi- 

 dence, and to the conclusions which it renders necessary. We dare 

 say the proposal will find respondents among men of leisure who have 

 access to large libraries, and we venture to hope that they will be able 

 to settle so vexed a subject. We trust they will take care not to con- 

 found the duration of natural seedlings with that of vegetable mules, 

 which is a wholly different question." 



In this paper, it appears to us that the terms " kinds," " species," 

 "races," "varieties," and " individuals" are employed both without 

 any just appreciation of the meanings which they are usually intended 

 to convey, and without any attempt to distinguish between the natural 

 conditions of either. A " race," like the term " alliance," or " family," 

 or " natural order," or " genus," implies to the ear of every botanist a 

 plurality of " species : " a " species " implies a plurality of " indivi- 

 duals " which agree in reproducing their own likeness, again and 

 again, through a succession of generations : a " kind " is a vague and 

 unbotanical term ; the only definite meaning that can be attached to 

 it is, " a peculiar individual, raised from the seed of a species," as a 

 golden pippin might be called a good " kind " of apple : a " variety " 

 is the deviation of many individuals, undoubtedly the descendants of 

 one species, from the normal type of colour or form ; thus, the white 

 individuals of Geranium Robertianum constitute a variety as regards 

 colour, and the Peloria individuals of Linaria vulgaris constitute a 

 variety as regards form. We do not attempt to give this as a novel 

 or scientific definition of the terms, but as a definition which exhi- 

 bits sufficiently well the absence of concord between the terms, and 

 exhibits, also, as injudicious, the practice of using them indifferently. 

 From the paper before us the terms " kinds," " races," and " varieties " 

 should be erased, as irrelevant, and the question discussed simply in 

 reference to the more definite ideas, " species " and " individuals." 



Now, aline being drawn between "species" and "individuals," 

 we cannot accept the author's mode of reasoning from one to the 

 other. " Species are eternal," he says ; and ho goes on to argue. 



