XCU PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



Lyell's former works, which have, I believe, since been modified, and 

 quotes also an expression of my own, that "Every species has cer- 

 tain determinate limits of variation, which it only exceeds under ex- 

 ceptional circumstances ; and the exceptionally abnormal forms thus 

 produced are few in individuals, and are not reproduced." This was 

 penned before the publication of tbe ' Origin of Species.' Had I 

 now to repeat the formula, I should omit all absolute expressions, 

 and admit of the occasional permanence of their transgression, when 

 the changes are not checked by cross breeding and other causes de- 

 tailed in Darwin's more recent work. I have also little doubt that 

 a careful study of this book must have on Mr. Murray's mind some of 

 the effect it has had upon mine ; and even at present his hypothesis 

 as to the cause of restricted areas (p. 10) appears to me not to differ 

 essentially from natural selection in the struggle for life. 



I take this opportunity of adverting to the ' Journal of Travel and 

 Natural History ' lately commenced by Mr. Murray, which promises 

 to supply a deficiency much felt in the science. The three numbers 

 already out afford a promise that it will be found well to repay any 

 encouragement given to it on the part of naturalists. 



In Systematic Botany, Dr. Hooker and myself have completed the 

 first volume of our ' Genera Plantarum.' Colonel (now General) 

 Munro has inserted in our Transactions a most valuable monograph 

 of that very difficult but important group of grasses, the Bambusaceae. 

 Their gigantic size, the rarity with which many of them flower, are 

 the chief causes of the very unsatisfactory state of our herbarium 

 specimens; but, besides a close study of Graminese during many 

 years, General Munro has been able to observe many of them living 

 in the various countries to which his military duties had called 

 him, and thus very materially to advance our knowledge of them. 

 Our Journal contains also a continuation of Dr. Masters's excellent 

 monoo-raph of Eestiaceae, an order the study of which is much com- 

 plicated by the great dissimilarity frequently observable between 

 the individuals of the two sexes. In some, indeed, of the best general 

 systematic works, he found the males and the females of the same 

 species placed in different genera. The ' Synopsis Filicum,' which 

 had been brought by the late Sir William Hooker into a very ad- 

 vanced state, has now been published under the editorship of Mr. 

 J. B. Baker — who has supplemented it by a paper on the geographical 

 distribution of Ferns, in our Transactions. 



Dr. Hooker has undertaken the continuation of his late father's 

 < Icones Plantarum,' the second part of the new series being on the 



