Mabch 18, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



425 



One can hardly fail to feel that this re- 

 fusal to look with charity upon anything new 

 only weakens Darwinism, and can but believe 

 that Darwin himself would have been rather 

 more broad minded. Darwin's position as the 

 most stimulating mind of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury stands secure, and he may well be ranked 

 with Newton as one of the two great men that 

 England has thus far produced. In this posi- 

 tion he remains no less securely even if we do 

 admit that the details of his great theory do 

 not work out in all respects as he imagined 

 them to do. We admire him not the less, but 

 rather the more, as we learn that the descent 

 theory, which must ever remain associated 

 with Darwin's name, agrees with newly dis- 

 covered facts as well as with those which Dar- 

 win himself knew. 



But this volume of essays is written by an 

 advocate, as eminently fitting for an anniver- 

 sary volume, and it will form a necessary part 

 of the Darwin bookshelf. Any light upon the 

 personal life of the world's great men always 

 has its interest and many a touch upon the 

 life of Darwin given in these papers helps to 

 render the great Englishman a live personal- 

 ity. The life of the man, his long struggle 

 •with ill health, his kindness and thoughtful- 

 ness for others amid his own suffering, his 

 eagerness to give others even more than their 

 share of credit for his discoveries and his own 

 proverbial modesty, are anew impressed upon 

 us as we read the unpublished letters and the 

 newly given incidents in his life. The oft- 

 quoted loss of appreciation of music and art, 

 which Darwin admitted in his later life, are 

 attributed by Poulton not to the result of 

 scientific study, but to his constant suffering 

 and ill health that made it impossible for him 

 to have any comfort save in the, to him, one 

 all-absorbing occupation of scientific study. 



One new contribution of scientific knowl- 

 edge is found in this volume in an essay upon 

 ■" Mimicry in the Butterflies of North Amer- 

 ica," originally read in Baltimore in 1908. 

 Complete mastery of this interesting subject 

 is shown with a wealth of illustrative mate- 

 rial. The historical development of mimicry 

 in the western continent is traced in ingenious 



detail. But Poulton adds nothing, and admits 

 that he can add nothing, to the puzzling ques- 

 tion of the cause of mimicry. This still re- 

 mains as great a puzzle as it has ever been, 

 although it is enriched with an abundance of 

 illustrative material by means of which Poul- 

 ton is enabled to follow the migrations into 

 North America of the successive types of but- 

 terflies. 



H. W. Conn 



SPECIAL ARTICLE fi 



" THE EARLIEST DESCBIPTION OF aJNOTHERA 



LAMAECKIANA 



In working over the early records of 

 Oenothera Lamarchiana I have recently dis- 

 covered in the Sturtevant collection of the 

 library of the Missouri Botanical Garden, a 

 remarkable manuscript which proves that this 

 plant was originally a species growing wild 

 in Virginia, and that it was the first GfJnoth- 

 era introduced into European gardens, about 

 1614. There has been so much obscurity and 

 doubt regarding the origin and early history 

 of 0. Lamarchiana, the plant upon which the 

 weight of DeVries's mutation theory largely 

 rests, that a document which proves definitely 

 the facts just stated must be regarded as of 

 prime interest and importance. The frequent 

 claim that 0. Lamarckiana probably origi- 

 nated in cultivation, either through hybridi- 

 zation or otherwise, is here shown to be wii^- 

 out sufficient foundation. • - '' 



The record in question is a long mar,,mal 

 note in a copy of Bauhin's " Pinax," pub- 

 lished at Basil in 162-3. The note is written 

 in Latin, in archaic English script, and gives 

 an accurate description of 0. Lamarchiana as 

 we now know it, though difi^ering somewhat 

 in one or two minor characters. The plants 

 were grovsrn from seeds obtained from Padua 

 in 1619, and the description is evidently writ- 

 ten from the living plants. It is remarkable 

 for its accuracy, considering the time it was 

 written, equaling in this respect descriptions 

 which were published much later. The au- 

 thor of the marginal note is apparently one 

 Joannis Snippendale, whose name, in similar 

 handwriting, appears on the title page of the 



