DARWIN. 167 



have yet to be thoroughly explored ; and the importance 

 of natural selection will not be impaired, even if further 

 inquiries should prove that variability is definite, and is 

 determined in certain directions rather than in others, by 

 conditions inherent in that which varies." 



We have not space to describe the importance of the 

 work Darwin did in, or bearing on, entomology, changing 

 its face and vastly elevating its importance. A volume 

 might be compiled from his writings on this subject, as 

 reference to Professor Riley's excellent summary (Dar- 

 win Memorial Meeting, Washington, 1882) will readily 

 show. Nor can we recount his important work in other 

 branches of biology further than has been already done 

 in the foregoing pages. To do so would require much 

 more than a volume of this size. 



One special department may perhaps claim notice on 

 the ground of its supposed non-scientific character. Dr. 

 Masters (Gardeners' Chronicle, April 22, 1882) says of 

 Darwin's service to horticulture : " Let any one who 

 knows what was the state of botany in this country even 

 so recently as fifteen or twenty years ago, compare the 

 feeling between botanists and horticulturists at that time 

 with what it is now. What sympathy had the one for the 

 pursuits of the other? The botanist looked down on 

 the varieties, the races, and strains, raised with so much 

 pride by the patient skill of the florist as on things 

 unworthy of his notice and study. The horticulturist, 

 on his side, knowing how very imperfectly plants could 

 be studied from the mummified specimens in herbaria, 

 which then constituted in most cases all the material 

 that the botanist of this country considered necessary for 



