Mr. W. Yarrell on some Species of the Genus Syngnathus. 81 



little importance to merit any particular consideration, or at 

 the least, that they are not new, — maintaining that wherever 

 pith occurs, it occurs as an adjunct of stem and not of root. 

 But with all due deference to great names and to great men, 

 I contend most zealously for the fact of the existence of a pith 

 in the root of exogenous seedlings at least. The affirmation 

 of it is good, at any rate, as far as my induction goes ; and no 

 one is at liberty to deny it, unless he can show that he has 

 examined roots of the same species and of the same age, with- 

 out having been able to discover the same appearances. Nor 

 is any one at liberty to say that the pith which is found in the 

 root is of no importance because it occurs merely in seedlings 

 and disappears in the mature plant. As well might the zo- 

 ologist deny the importance of the tail of the tadpole, because 

 it disappears in the full-grown frog. And if it is said that 

 my facts are not new, I can only answer for myself, by saying 

 in reply, that I never either heard or read of such facts till I 

 discovered them in the course of my own investigations. They 

 may be old facts ; but if facts at all, whether old or new, why 

 are they contradicted by modern botanists ? 



I contend also with equal zeal for the fact of the gradual 

 diminution of the pith of the stem till it dwindles away at last 

 to a mere thread in the mature trunk ; and as I am persuaded 

 that the facts which I have adduced in support of the doc- 

 trine are new, so I am satisfied that they are also true. Yet 

 truth does not always meet with the ready reception which it 

 merits — not even from philosophers themselves ; especially 

 when any new fact occurs that happens to militate against 

 their recorded opinions. 



IX. — Remarks on some Species of the Genus Syngnathus. 

 By William Yarrell, Esq., F.L.S., F.Z.S. 



When reading in November last in the 8th Number of the 

 ^ Annals of Natural History' the translation of the paper on 

 the species of the genus Syngnathus by M. B. Fr. Fries of 

 Stockholm, in which that gentleman states that the first ex- 

 ample of the ophidial pipe-fish figured in the ^ History of the 



