Dec. 21, 1871J 



NATURE 



143 



has kept silkworms or bred butterflies. Tlie assertion that there 

 is absolutely only a diflference i;i the time at which the successive 

 skins are formed in this and in ordinary ecdysis, is but assertion 

 on the part of Mr. Lowne. Indeed, controversy becomes profit- 

 less if authority is to be substituted for fact, and an attempt made 

 to silence opponents and stop inquiry by such positive assertions 

 as the abave and t'le f.illon'ing : — "The imaginal skin is likewise 

 derived from cells laid down in contact with the imaginal discs." 

 If Mr. Lowne will bo so good as to explain what no books tell 

 me, and I fail to make out myself, I will study what he says with 

 great attention, and thank him heartily. He knows me well 

 enough to feel assured that I would do so ; but it is useless, and 

 he must permit me to say that it is not in good taste, for him to 

 comment about the "return of darkness," and to use expressions 

 move posiiive and arbitrary than are called for. 



I.ct us, if we can, get at tlie facts concerning some of these 

 marvellous changes. For this there is nothing like discussion, 

 carried on with care and consideration, even for an opponent ; 

 and though the fittest may be certain that he will survive, don't 

 let any one be in too great haste to proclaim himself either sur- 

 vivor or fittest, or call himself strong and others weak, as has 

 been done once already by one distinguished evolutionist. Evo- 

 In'ion is a much quieter and far more complex process than some 

 enthusiasts would have us believe. 



Mr. Lowne appeals to the fly. By all means let the fly be the 

 subject ol our inquiries. Of this creature he says, the nervous 

 system undergoes inodificalioii but not degeneration. Nov I 

 ask, what part of the nervous system that is present in the 

 maggot can Mr. Lowne find in the fly ? I have studied both fly 

 and maggot carefully, have worked at the matter lo.-ig, and have 

 utterly failed to find a (race of the nerve tissue of the maggot in 

 the fly. Not only so, but I find the nerves of the fly as different 

 as are the muscles from those of the maggot. The latter are 

 altogether distinct in structure and in action. They contract at 

 a very different rate, and are very different in many particulars. 



Again, I must ask Mr. Lowne if he has seen any vestige of the 

 mouth organs in the larva, for he says: — "It is the mouih 

 organs of the larva which are new formations, not those of the 

 imago." I have failed in my attempts to find any traces. There 

 are other assertions about the alimentary canal and the sa.xual 

 organs which are not proved. Does Mr. Lowne mean to say, 

 for instance, t'lat he or anyone else can adduce any reliable ob- 

 servations to prove that "the sexual organs are gradually deve- 

 loped, even from the time when the embryo is enclosed in the 

 egg" ? On p. 112 of his book on this very matter he says that 

 he has not been able to verify Dr. Weissmana's assertion as to 

 their presence, even in the larva ; and now he suggests they exist 

 in the egg ! 



But I must ask Mr. Lowne to explain what he means by saying 

 in his'letter, tint it is an "utter mistake to suppose that any in- 

 sect is re-developed during the pupa state," and that the nervous 

 system " never undergoes degeneration ;" because on p. 1 16 of his 

 own book, published only last year, I find the following passage ; 

 "All the tissues of the larva iindergo degeneration, and the 

 imaginal tissues are re-developed . . . under conditions similar 

 to those appertaining to the formation of the embryonic tissues 

 from the yolk " ! Lionel S. Beale 



The Auditory Nerves of Gasteropoda 



In your issue for October 26, I notice an account of Leydig's 

 recent paper on the auditory organ of the Gasteropoda, which, 

 though excellent in other respects, has an error of omission which 

 I should like to see rectified. When so important a discovery 

 for morphology is discussed as that of the innervation of the 

 otolithic sac from the supra-cesophageal in place of the sub- 

 rcsop.'-.ageal ganglion which is its apparent connection in all 

 Gasteropoda (excepting the Heteropodous forms), the credit of it 

 should be given to the right man. That man is the most eminent 

 and accurate of French comparative anatomists — M. Lacaze- 

 Duthiers. Prof. Leydig states in the beginning of his own paper 

 that Lacaze-Duthiers' statements on this subject (published in the 

 Co/nftcs Rendus about three years ago, if my memory serves me, 

 and curiously mistranslated, siis-asophagien being rendered suh- 

 resophageal in one of the first numbers of the Monthly Micros- 

 copical Journal), caused him to direct his attention again to this 

 subject, and he has, as a result, confirmed the observations of the 

 French savant, w hich were in opposition to the previously-received 

 views of all observers, himself and Leydig included. Germany 

 has a host of indefatigable anatomists, and the services of Franz 

 Leydig, of Tubingen, are brilliant enough to eclipse most zooto- 



micai reputations; but let us not, at this moment above all others, 

 forget to da justice, when the opportunity occurs, to a naturalist 

 whose comprehensive, accurate, and neautiful zojtomical mono- 

 graphs, rich in discoveries, have done more than those of any 

 otlier Frenchman to sustain the great name of Cuvier's school. 

 Naples, Dec. 8 E. R. Lankester 



DR. CARPENTER AND DR. MAYER 

 A T the Anniversary Dinner of the Royal Society on 

 -'^"^ November 30, I was honoured by a request from the 

 President to say a few words in acknowledgment of the 

 toast to the Copley Medalist. I did so, stating briefly the 

 origin of my acquaintance with Dr. J.Tayer's writings. 

 Though Dr. Carpenter at the time was within sight of me, 

 it did not occur to me to introduce his name into my 

 remarks. A few days afterwards I was favoured by a 

 letter from Dr. Carpenter, in which he reminds me some- 

 what sharply of this and other lapses as regards himself, 

 and requests me to rectify the omission by a brief- com- 

 munication to the Atlicnceum or to Nature. It will 

 be fairer to Dr. Carpenter, and more agreeable to me, if 

 he would state his own case in cxtenso. Here is his 

 letter : — 



'•' University of London, Burlington Gardens, W., 

 " December 5th, 1871. 



" My de.\R Tvnd.'VLL, — If I correctly apprehended what 

 you said at the Dinner of the Royal Society in regard to 

 Dr. Mayer, you repeated what you had previously stated 

 in your Lecture at the Royal Institution in 1863, as to 

 the entire ignorance of Mayer's work which prevailed in 

 this country until you brought it into notice on that 

 occasion. 



'■ Now, I very distinctly remember that a few days pre- 

 viously to that Lecture, I mentioned to you that as far 

 back as 185 1 I had become acquainted, through the late 

 Dr. Baly, with one of Dr. Mayer's earlier publications ; 

 and that, in bringing before the readers of the British 

 and Forcig;n Medical RL-vieiu (of which I was then the 

 Editor) the 'Correlation' doctrine, as developed in 

 Physics by Grove, and in Physiology by myself, I had 

 stated that we had both been to a great e.Ktent anticipated 

 by Mayer — as I should have shown much more fully if the 

 pamphlet had earlier come into my hands. 



" I also most distinctly remember that, as you stated in 

 that Lecture, no one in this country — 'not even Sir 

 Henry Holland, who knows everything' — had ever heard 

 of Mayer, I spoke to you again on the subject a few days 

 afterwards ; and that you then expressed )-our regret at 

 having entirely forgotten what had previously passed be- 

 tween us on the subject. 



"As it would seem that this second mention of the matter 

 has also passed from your mind, I shall be obliged by your 

 looking at the passages I have marked in pp. 227 and 237 

 of the accompanying volume, from which I think that you 

 will be satisfi-jd that I had at that date correctly appre- 

 hended Mayer's fundamental idea, and that I have done 

 the best to put it before the public that I could under the 

 circumstances — the article having been in type and ready 

 for press before his pamphlet came into my hands. 



" Since, in thus bringing forward .Mayer, I spontaneously 

 abdicated the position to which I had previously behoved 

 myself entitled, of having been the first to put forward 

 the idea that all the manifestations of Force exhibited 

 by a living organism have their source ab extra, and not 

 — as taught by physiologists up to that time — ab intra, I 

 venture to hope that you will do me the justice of stating 

 the real facts of the case in a short communication either 

 to the Atlienatan or to N.VTURE. — I remain, my dear 

 Tyndall, yours faithfully, " WiLLi.Ajr B. Carpenter 



" Prof. Tyndall." 



This letter was accompanied by a volume of the 

 Medico-C/ururgical Rcvieiv, containing an article headed, 

 " Grove, Carpenter, &c., on the Correlation of Forces, 



