4o8 



NATURE 



[Sept. 7, 1876 



with a great attractiveness to insects, and the capacity of being 

 fertilised by a variety of species of all orders, and especially by 

 flies and small beetles. Thus they would be among the earliest 

 of flowering plants to establish themselves on oceanic islands ; 

 but where insects of all kinds were very scarce it would be an 

 advantage to gain increased size and longevity, so that fertilization 

 at an interval of several years might suffice for the continuance 

 of the species. The arborescent form would combine with 

 increased longevity the advantage of increased size in the struggle 

 for existence with the ferns and other early colonists, and these 

 advantages have led to its being independently produced in so 

 many distant localities, whose chief feature in common is their 

 remoteness from continents and the extreme poverty of their 

 insect life. 



As the sweet odours of flowers are known to act in combination 

 with their colours, as an attraction to insects, it might be antici- 

 pated that where colour was deficient scent would be so also. 

 On applying to my friend Dr. Hooker for information as to 

 New Zealand plants, he informed me that this was certainly the 

 case, and that the New Zealand flora is, speaking generally, as 

 strikingly deficient in sweet odours as in conspicuous colours. 

 Whether this peculiarity occurs in other islands I have not been 

 able to obtain information, but we may certainly expect it to be 

 so in such a marked instance as that of the Galapagos flora. 



Another question which here comes before us is the origin and 

 meaning of the odoriferous glands of leaves. Dr. Hooker in- 

 formed me that not only are New Zealand plants deficient in 

 scented flowers, but equally so in scented leaves. This led 

 me to think that perhaps such leaves were in some wry an 

 additional attraction to insects, though it is not easy to under- 

 stand how this could be, except by adding a general attraction 

 to the special attraction of the flowers, or by supporting the larvae 

 which as perfect insects aid in fertilisation. Mr. Darwin, how- 

 ever, informs me that he considers that leaf-glands bearing essential 

 oils are a protection against the attacks of insects where these 

 abound, and would thus not be required in countries where 

 insects were very scarce. But it seems opposed to this view that 

 highly aromatic plants are characteristic of deserts all over the 

 world, and in such places insects are not abundant. Mr. Stainton 

 informs me that the aromatic Labiatae enjoy no immunity from 

 insect attacks. The bitter leaves of the cherry -laurel are often 

 eaten by the larvae of moths that abound on our fruit-trees; while 

 in the Tropics the leaves of the orange tribe are favourites with 

 a large number of lepidopterous larvae ; and our northern firs and 

 pines, although abounding in a highly aromatic resin, are very 

 subject to the attacks of beetles. My friend Dr. Richard Spruce 

 — who while travelling in South America allowed nothing con- 

 nected with plant-life to escape his observation — informs me 

 that trees whose leaves have aromatic and often resinous secre- 

 tions in immersed glands abound in the plains of tropical 

 America, and that such are in great part, if not wholly, free 

 from the attacks of leaf-eating ants, except where the secretion 

 is only slightly bitter, as in the orange tribe, orange-trees being 

 sometimes entirely denuded of their leaves in a single night. 

 Aromatic plants abound in the Andes up to about 13,000 feet, 

 as well as in the plains, but hardly more so than in Central and 

 Southern Europe. They are perhaps most plentiful in the dry 

 mountainous parts of Southern Europe ; and as neither here nor 

 in the Andes do leaf-eating ants exist. Dr. Spruce infers that, 

 although in the hot American forests where such ants swarm 

 the oil-bearing glands serve as a protection, yet they were not 

 originally acquired for that purpose. Near the limits of per- 

 petual snow on the Andes such plants as occur are not, so far 

 as Dr. Spruce has observed, aromatic : and as plants in such 

 situations can hardly depend on insect visits for their fertilisation, 

 the fact is comparable with that of the flora of New Zealand, and 

 would seem to imply some relation between the two phenomena, 

 though what it exactly is cannot yet be determined. 



I trust I have now been able to show you that there are 

 a number of curious problems lying as it were on the outskirts 

 of biological inquiry which well merit attention, and which may 

 lead to valuable results. But these problems are, as you see, for 

 the most part connected with questions of locality, and require 

 full and accurate knowledge of the productions of a number of 

 small islands and other Imiited areas, and the means of com- 

 paring them the one with the other. To make such comparisons 

 IS, however, now quite impossible. No museum contains any 

 fair representation of the productions of these localities, and 

 such specimens as do exist, being scattered through the general 



collection, are almost useless for this special purpose. If, then, 

 we are to make any progress in this inquiry, it is absolutely 



essential that some collectors should begin to arrange their 

 cabinets primarily on a geographical basis, keeping together the 

 productions of every island or group of islands, and of such 

 divisions of each continent as are found to possess any special or 

 characteristic fauna or flora. We shall then be sure to detect 

 many unsuspected relations between the animals and plants of 

 certain localities, and we shall become mUch better acquainted 

 with those complex reactions between the vegetable and animal 

 kingdoms, and between the organic world and the inorganic, 

 which have almost certainly played an important part in deter- 

 mining many of the most conspicuous features of living things. 



Rise and Progress of Modern Views as to the Antiquity and 

 Origin of Man. 



I now come to a branch of our subject which I would gladly 

 have avoided touching on, but as the higher powers of this Asso- 

 ciation have decreed that I should preside over the Anthropological 

 Department, it seems proper that I should devote some portion 

 of my address to matters more immediately connected with the 

 special study to which that Department is devoted. 



As my own knowledge of, and interest in, Anthropology, is 

 confined to the great outlines, rather than to the special details 

 of the science, 1 propose to give a very brief and general sketch 

 of the modern doctrine as to the Antiquity and Origin of Man, 

 and to suggest certain points of difficulty which have not, I think, 

 yet received sufficient attention.- 



Many now present remember the time (for it is little more 

 than twenty years ago) when the antiquity of man, as now 

 understood, was universally discredited. Not only theologians, 

 but even geologists, then taught us that man belonged altogether 

 to the existing state of things ; that the extinct animals of the 

 Tertiary period had finally disappeared, and that the earth's 

 surface had assumed its present condition, before the human race 

 first came into existence. So prepossessed were even scientific 

 men with this idea — which yet rested on purely negative evidence, 

 and could not be supported by any arguments of scientific value 

 — that numerous facts which had been presented at intervals for 

 half a century, all tending to prove the existence of man at very 

 remote epochs, were silently ignored ; and, more than this, the 

 detailed statements of three distinct and careful observers were 

 rejected by a great scientific Society as too improbable for pub- 

 lication, only because they proved (if they were true) the co- 

 existence of man with extinct animals ! -^ 



But this state of belief in opposition to facts could not long 

 continue. In 1859 a few of our most eminent geologists 

 examined for themselves into the alleged occurrence of flint 

 implements in the gravels of the North of France, which had 

 been made public fourteen years before, and found them strictly 

 correct. The caverns of Devonshire were about the same time 

 carefully examined by equally eminent observers, and were found 

 fully to bear out the statements of those who had published their 

 results eighteen years before. Flint implements began to be 

 found in all suitable localities in the South of England, when 

 carefully searched for, often in gravels of equal antiquity with 

 those of France. Caverns, giving evidence of human occupation 

 at various remote periods, were explored in Belgium and the 

 South of France, — lake dwellings were examined in Switzerland 

 — refuse heaps in Denmark — and thus a whole series of remains 

 have been discovered carrying back the history of mankind from 

 the earliest historic periods to a long distant past. The antiquity 

 ot the races thus discovered can only be generally determined 

 by the successively earlier and earlier stages through which 

 we can trace them. As we go back, metals soon disappear 

 and we find only tools and weapons of stone and of bone. 

 The stone weapons get ruder and ruder ; pottery, and then 

 the bone implements, cease to occur ; and in the earliest 

 stage we find only chipped flints, of rude design though 

 still of unmistakably human workmanship. In like manner 

 domestic animals disappear as we go backward ; and though 

 the dog seems to have been the earliest, it is doubtful whether 

 the makers of the ruder flint implements of the gravels 

 possessed even this. Still more important as a measure of 

 time are the changes of the earth's surface — of the distribution 

 of animals — and of climate — which have occurred during the 

 human period. At a comparatively recent epoch in the record 

 of prehistoric times we find that the Baltic was far Salter than it 

 is now, and produced abundance of oysters ; and that Denmark 



I In 1854 (?) a communication from the Torquay Natural History Society 

 confirming previous accounts by Mr. Godwin-Austen, Mr. Vivian, and the 

 Rev. Mr. McEnery, that worked flints occurred in Kent's Hole with remams 

 of extinct species, was rejected as too improbable for publication. 



