BUCH. 213 



differences between them ; but if we compare them 

 during their successive stages of Evolution, we see 

 that these differences were preceded by resem- 

 blances ; that, in fact, Comparative Anatomy is an ar- 

 rested embryology, and Embryology is a transitory 

 comparative anatomy. 



THE FOLLOWERS OF BUFFON. 



Among those who took up, more especially, the 

 ideas of Buffon and Linnaeus, was the Rev. W. Her- 

 bert, in his work on the ^Amaryllidaceal 1837,* in 

 which he declares that " horticultural experiments 

 have established, beyond the possibility of refutation, 

 that botanical species are only a higher and more 

 permanent class of varieties " ; that single species of 

 each genus were created in an originally plastic con- 

 dition, and that these had produced, by intercrossing 

 and by variation, all our existing species. He 

 thus takes a point midway between Linnaeus and 

 Buffon. 



Another Buffonian was CHRISTIAN LEOPOLD 

 VON BUCH (1773-1853), a well-known naturalist 

 and geologist. In 1836 he published an essay 

 entitled, " Physical Description of the Canary 

 Islands." We find that he is struck, like Hum- 

 boldt, with the problem raised by the geograph- 

 ical distribution of plants ; unlike the great traveller, 

 he does not hesitate, but proceeds to solve it. He 

 says : 



1 See also the fourth volume of the Horticult^^ral Transactions, 1822. 



