x - OBITUARY 283 
and varieties, drawn by even the most careful and 
conscientious systematists! were of no less im- 
_ portance to the author of the “Origin of Species ” 
_ than was the bearing of the Cirripede work upon 
_ “the principles of a natural classification.” (I. p. 
81.) No one, as Darwin justly observes, has a 
“right to examine the question of species who 
has not minutely described many.” (II. p. 39.) 
In September, 1854, the Cirripede work was 
_ finished, “ ten thousand barnacles” had been sent 
“out of the house, all over the world,” and Darwin 
had the satisfaction of being free to turn again to 
his “old notes on species.” In 1855; he began to 
breed pigeons, and to make observations on the 
effects of use and disuse, experiments on seeds, 
and so on, while resuming his industrious collec- 
tion of facts, with a view “to see how far they 
favour or are opposed to the notion that wild species 
are mutable or immutable. I mean with my 
utmost power to give all arguments and facts on 
both sides. I have a number of people helping 
me every way, and giving me most valuable 
1 ** After describing a sect of forms as distinct species, tearing 
up my MS., and making them one species, tearing that up and 
baking them separate, and then making them one again (which 
gigi to me), I have gnashed my teeth, cursed species, 
and asked what sin I had committed to be so punished.” (II. 
p. 40.) Isthere any naturalist provided with a logical sense and 
a large suite of specimens, who has not undergone pangs of the 
Sort described in this vigorous paragraph, which might, with 
advantage, be printed on the title-page of every systematic 
monograph as a warning to the uninitiated ? 
