57 



finite or specific form, whence the terms ' Oak/ 'Ash/ 

 and ( Bell-coralline/ ' Fern-coralline/ ( Sea-oak-coralline/ 

 &c. But, by parity of reasoning, the nests or ( combs' of 

 certain Hymenoptera and the nidamental capsules of most 

 testaceous mollusks might be regarded as individuals ; for 

 the separate ovigerous cells, of which they are respectively 

 the aggregates, are grouped together in each species, in so 

 constant and specific a form, as to be readily recognized 

 after having been once defined. 



It would have been strangely at variance with that beau- 

 tiful principle of variety in non-essentials which pervades 

 nature, if the individuals of different species of plants and 

 animals, which cohere together after gemmation, had not 

 been grouped each after its own specific pattern ; but this 

 specific pattern of grouping no more constitutes a single 

 organic individual than it does in the case of the aggregate 

 of egg-capsules or larval cells just cited. 



If, however, it should still be felt that the explanation 

 I have here offered in accordance with the opinions of 

 Hunter*, Steenstriipfj Prof. Ed. Forbes J, and other philo- 

 sophic naturalists, be somewhat forced or at least optional, 

 we may arrive perhaps at greater confidence in its exacti- 

 tude by extending the bounds of the analogies by which 

 it has been illustrated. 



To facilitate the comparison I have devised the diagrams 

 engraved in the frontispiece, Plate I. 



* Loc. cit. " Every part of a vegetable is a whole." The enunciation 

 of the idea is perhaps too general and extreme. 



f Loc. cit. " It is certainly the great triumph of morphology that 

 it is able to show how the plant or tree (that colony of individuals ar- 

 ranged in accordance with a simple vegetative principle or fundamental 

 law) unfolds itself, through a frequently long succession of generations, 

 into individuals becoming more and more perfect." (p. 114.) 



J " We are not in the habit of regarding a leaf as the individual 

 popularly we look upon the whole plant as an individual. Yet every 

 botanist knows that it is a combination of individuals, and if so, each 

 series of buds must certainly be strictly regarded as generations." 

 Monograph on British Naked- eyed Medusse, p. 87. 



