1863.] ADDRESS OF THE EDITOR. 5 



circulation might be extended by this proposed extension of our 

 plan ; and in this event more letterpress might be afforded for 

 the same price. 



As above intimated^ this cannot take place till the retirement 

 of the worthy publisher, who entered into an engagement with 

 the former proprietor not to admit any zoological articles into 

 its pages, on the express stipulation that no botanical matter 

 appeared in the ' Zoologist ;' an agreement which has, on one side, 

 been but indifferently fulfilled. 



Many remarks, queries, notes, and reflections, have reached 

 both our eyes and ears on a subject which has given rise to much 

 discussion, during at least a space of two years, viz. on the 

 mutability of species, or, in more qualified terms, on the effect of 

 natural selection in modifying what are usually called species. 

 The ancient doctrine, sanctioned by the high authority of 

 Linnaeus, that only a single plant of the more complete kinds, 

 and a pair of the less complete, were originally created, has 

 been again broached in these our times. From this assumed 

 hypothesis, and from other well-known facts, it has been asserted 

 that varieties are incipient species ; and that aberrant forms by a 

 kind of accumulative action will gradually become distinct from 

 their original parents, and grow into new and independent 

 species, genera, and orders. 



Much of the ingenious speculation bestowed on this new 

 doctrine is based on the acknowledged distinction existing be- 

 tween domestic and wild animals, and cultivated and spontaneous 

 plants. It is further assumed that all plants Avere originally 

 wild, and that all tame breeds of cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, etc., 

 were once/er« naturd, natural wild-beasts; also, that the human 

 race was once in a similar condition, and that thousands of years 

 were spent in the selective operations ere a perfect man and 

 woman were evolved, by the continuous exercise of these won- 

 derful secret selective powers. 



The Editor most humbly begs all his correspondents who 

 have sent him remarks, queries, and memoranda on this mys- 

 terious subject, to remember that the ' Phytologist ' is not the 

 proper medium for ventilating theoretical views ; it is merely a 

 repository of facts, though it is sometimes entrapped into the 

 maze of speculation, probabilities, and possibilities; and its 

 pages are sometimes made receptacles of learned lumber, a state 



