Nov. 4, 1869] 
NATURE 
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the first-opened male heads no doubt fertilising the stigma 
from the next-opened hermaphrodite heads, and so on. 
In this species the bracts are not cup-shaped, but nearly 
flat; the stigmas hang out very much farther than in 
E. helioscopia ; and the styles are perfectly straight. 
The above observations are very imperfect as a series, 
and I can only offer them as a contribution towards an 
investigation of the laws which govern the cross-fertilisation 
or self-fertilisation of winter-flowering plants. On com- 
municating some of them to Mr. Darwin, he suggested that 
the self-fertilised flowers of Lamu album, and other 
similar plants, may possibly correspond to the well-known 
imperfect self-fertilised flowers of Oxalis and Viola; and 
that the flowers produced in thesummer are cross-fertilised; 
a suggestion which I believe will be found correct. 
In conclusion, I may make two observations. The 
time of flowering of our common plants given in our text- 
books is lamentably inexact; for the hazel, March and 
April for instance! and for the white dead-nettle, May and 
June! according to Babington. Great care also should 
be taken to examine the flowers the moment they are 
brought in-doors ; as the heat of the room will often cause 
the anthers to discharge their pollen in an incredibly short 
space of time. This is especially the case with the grasses, 
ALFRED W. BENNETT 
PROTOPLASM AT THE ANTIPODES 
“TBE Protoplasm excitement seems to have died away in 
a great measure in this country ; and it is probably no 
loss to science that the matter has ceased to be a prevailing 
topic of conversation at dinner tables. We learn, however, 
from the Melbourne papers, that the arrival/of the February 
number of the Fortnightly Review in the Australian colonies 
gave rise to an epidemic there of controversial science in 
a very alarming form. ‘The description they give of the 
intellectual condition of Melbourne in June and July last, 
in fact, reminds us of that famous time at Constantinople, 
when a cobbler would not mend a pair of shoes until 
he had converted his customer from a Homousian to a 
Homoiousian, or vice versd. The Melbourne Daily Tele- 
graph is proud to think that a city which a few years back 
could only be stirred by a “ Jumping Frog,” is now agitated 
by proteinaceous theories ; and this, too, in spite of the fact 
that they had previously been warned by the scientific 
correspondent of the MZelbourne Leader of Mr. Huxley’s 
gross ignorance and sensational superficiality. It is per- 
fectly well known that at home here Mr. Huxley has been 
refuted many more times than there are copies of his 
article; but in Melbourne he was refuted over again 
afresh. We learn that the Rev. H. Higginson, “in a 
singularly able discourse at the Unitarian Church, tore the 
theory to shreds in a way”—reports the Argus with 
felicitous dubiety—“ which showed the preacher to be as 
keen a humorist as he is a subtle logician.” So able was 
the discourse, and so humorous, that it was repeated 
shortly afterwards as a lecture at the Mechanics’ Institute. 
Here, however, the lecturer stated that it was a mistake to 
suppose that he had in the sermon either torn the theory 
to shreds or treated it in a humorous way ; and the report 
of the lecture lends great support to the statement. 
It may be perhaps gratifying to Mr. Huxley, to think 
that he has stirred men’s minds in a place which was 
almost a ¢erva tncognita when the unknown young assis- 
tant-surgeon of the Radélesnake looked upon it; but the 
papers tell us that a reprint of the Porénightly article has 
been the first instance of infringement of copyright in that 
colony ; and when the learned anatomist was speaking at 
Edinburgh he probably little thought that materialism 
would take its revenge on him by producing the following 
exercise in applied Biology :— 
THE PuysicauL Basis or Lire. 
Huxley’s celebrated Essay on this subject is lectured on 
daily, by 
WILLIAM Barton, 
who has made the matter a life study. It is also illustrated daily 
at his tables, where the ‘physical basis” can be laid in from 
II to 3, in the best cooked and most varied 
Hor LuNcHEON 
in the city. 
The first feeling which comes to the mind after such 
things as these is an unbounded belief in the wisdom of 
those old teachers who kept esoteric and exoteric doctrines 
wide apart, and who laid bare the workings of their 
minds to trusted scholars only, and never to the vulgar 
gaze. We begin fervently to wish that our illustrious 
biologist had not, by the dress and mode of his lecture, so 
laid great biological truths before the public as to excite 
those especially ignorant of the science of life to try and 
trample them under foot, and then leave them for a vulgar 
tavern-keeper to hang up for a sign. 
Second—better—thoughts, however, remind us that men 
of science work not for themselves, or for their scientific 
fellows, but for mankind ; and that only mischief can come 
of it if they whose business it is to ask Nature her secrets 
are hindered from telling the world all that they think 
they hear. It is impossible to separate science from other 
knowledge and from daily life: all new discoveries espe- 
cially must have ties with every part of our nature. It is 
not the business of the biologist to enforce on others what 
he believes to be the consequences of his biological dis- 
coveries ; but it is certainly not his duty to withhold his 
facts from the common people because of the results which 
he thinks will follow. 
And in regard to Australia in particular, we have this 
reflection, that the plough is needful for the seed ; heavy 
land wants well turning up. There are not wanting signs 
that a national character is beginning to form among the 
inhabitants of that country; and we trust that scientific 
zeal will be one of its chief features. We hope that science 
even in a controversial form will never again give way in 
Melbourne to the vain delights of the “Jumping Frog ;” 
and that the protoplasm which Mr. William Barton so ad- 
mirably cooks will reappear in the nerve cells of Australian 
brains, and give rise to that love of truth, apart from gold 
or gain, which is the “moral” basis of “national” life. 
We may add that we hope not without confidence ; for a 
bright example of conscientious truthfulness appeared in 
the midst of this small biological tempest. Many of our 
readers may remember the abundant fervour with which 
Prof. Halford, some years since, attacked Mr. Huxley’s 
“Man’s Place in Nature.” At the end of Mr. Higginson’s 
lecture the talented Melbourne anatomist courageously told 
the meeting, that he had seen reason to change his 
opinions. Every one here will rejoice to receive from the 
Antipodes a lesson of self-denial and moral daring, not too 
common amongst ourselves, 
