38 U. UNCERTAINTY OF SPECIES. 



dual specimens of Ranunculus and Arctium differ in some 

 degree from other specimens, Mr. Babington forthwith 

 assumes that they will have all the other characters of 

 true species, organic and physiological ; and he becomes 

 their baptismal sponsor that they now have, and that 

 their descendants also shall have, such characters. Un- 

 fortunatel}^ quasi-species do not always fulfil the pro- 

 mises made for them by their sponsors. 



Another illustration may be borrowed from the same 

 botanist. A few specimens (was there truly more than 

 one ?) among those hitherto designated by the name of 

 Dryas octopetala, are found to resemble each other, and 

 to differ from the rest of the . examples of D. octopetala, 

 in having the base of the calyx less convex and the 

 sepals somewhat broader, — differences so slight as to 

 have escaped the regard of all botanists down to the year 

 (say) 1840, if they were then more than a very temporary 

 and recent variation. Therefore, these one or few sj)eci- 

 mens, found on a single hill in Ireland, and any others 

 that may hereafter be found like them, are to be re- 

 named Dryas depressa, — cannot lose their slightly dis- 

 tinguishing peculiarities, — are the unchanged descend- 

 ants of predecessors for centuries of j^ears back, — will 

 reproduce their own like for centuries of years to come, 

 — and if any of their own descendants shall be anywise 

 different, those differences will not be perpetuated, but 

 will disappear again in the descendants of the changed 

 plants, if not in the individual plants themselves. 



All these inferences or mere suppositions do seem to 

 be by no means necessary consequences of a trifling dif- 

 ference in the calyx between the sjjecimens of Dryas 

 from Ben Bulben and those from other hills ; more espe- 

 cially so, since the same form of calyx has been subse- 

 quently sought in plants on the same hill without success 



