THE FOUNTAIN OF CHANGE 241 



in the Evening Primrose of Hilversum, which, by 

 the way, turns out to have been in the eighteenth 

 century a wild species in North America. Three 

 points may be emphasized. First, that some of the 

 mutants which De Vries's sportive QEnotheras threw 

 off, as an artist might tear sketches from his note- 

 book, were ephemeral failures, while others were 

 viable and bred true, and could not be otherwise 

 described than as species in the making, fingers 

 searching, as it were, for their appropriate environ- 

 mental glove. Second, in many cases the mutants 

 were of particular interest because they showed 

 through and through divergences in leaf and 

 stem and flower certainly suggestive of some 

 general disturbance of germinal organization. Just 

 as if the CEnothera was born again ! Third, that the 

 creativeness or sportiveness of the Evening Prim- 

 rose is not restricted to De Vries's particular race of 

 CEnothera lamarckiana. It occurs in other species 

 of Evening Primrose, and also in snapdragon and 

 barley, in strawberry and maize, in pomace-fly and 

 potato-beetle, in rat and man himself, and so forth. 

 Mutations may be induced experimentally, as 

 Professor Tower did with his potato-beetles and 

 as Mme. Henri recently did with the bacillus of 

 anthrax, or they may manifest themselves in wild 

 nature, as in the already mentioned Peppered Moth 

 and Sugar-bird. The result may be a plus or a 

 minus, a dominant or a recessive or neither, patho- 

 logical or normal. The mutation may occur after 

 crossing or in a pure race; it may show itself 



