328 DARWINIANISM. 



innumerable enigmata such :' of which we can only 

 adduce some. 



In a paragraph headed " A Hare Blooming Flower," 

 the Scotsman of 27th August 1889 begins thus : " There 

 is now in full flower in the hothouses at Hamilton 

 Palace gardens a fine specimen of the Eyuca Gloriosa 

 Variegata, said to blossom only once in a hundred years." 

 Here, I fear, there is something quite hopeless, whether 

 for Plato or Aristotle, for Kant or Hegel, for Newton 

 or Laplace, for Linnaeus or Cuvier, or even for Darwin ! 



On the 8th of the succeeding October there appeared 

 in the same newspaper a paragraph from which I ex- 

 tract as follows : 



"A French paper, Les Mondes, gives a fascinating account of a 

 newly-discovered flower, of which rumours have from time to time 

 reached the ears of floriculturists. It is called the snowflower, and 

 is said to have been discovered by Count Anthoskoff in the most 

 northern portion of Siberia, where the ground is continually 

 covered with frost. This wonderful object shoots forth from the 

 frozen soil only on the first day of each succeeding year. It shines 

 for but a single day, and then resolves to its original elements. . . . 

 Anthoskoff collected some of these seeds and carried them with him 

 to St. Petersburg. They were placed in a pot of snOw, where they 

 remained for some time. On the 1st of the following January the 

 miraculous snowflower burst through its icy covering, and displayed 

 its beauties to the wondering Russian Royalty." 



We repeat this only because of the authority that 

 gives it. If true, then here is a New Year's Day gift, 

 the interpreter of which may well be admired by any 

 one of the above-named nine. 



Mr. Darwin himself, in his Journal, furnishes us with 

 some striking examples of what might have shaken his 

 own creed when he came to it. He had the good 

 fortune, he says, " to see several of the famous Ornitho- 

 rhynchus paradoxus." It is not probable that any 

 man will make plain to us how, in the quite natural 



