SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



129 



3 early youth, he would regard it as the most 

 the honours that had been or could be 

 bestowed upon him." 



Ir. replying upon behalf of his father's memory 

 and for the family, Mr. W. E. Darwin, after some 

 kindly remarks about the association of Sir Joseph 

 Hooker and his father, said : 



"As for the statue, all would feel that it was a noble 

 and lasting monument to what science had done for 

 mankind, and one worthy of a life devoted purely 

 and simply to the study of the mysteries of nature. 

 The statue in the South Kensington Museum was 

 a very high honour to Darwin, and that was raised 



jscriptions throughout the civilized world ; 



e could not help thinking that the statue 

 unveiled that day in some respects was a higher 

 honour still. It showed a deeper sense of the 

 value of Charles Darwin. As regards Darwin 

 :. he was very human, as all who had read 

 his life knew. He did not search after fame or 

 honour, but when it came to him he received it 

 with unfeigned delight. Nothing would have given 

 him truer pleasure than to know that the Horti- 

 cultural Society had erected a statue to him in 

 front of his old school and in his own town. To 

 the end of his life he loved Shrewsbury, and he 

 also loved his old school, in spite of the laughing 

 horror he had for all classical training. He used 

 to say that this school training was utterly lost on 

 him in every way, but whether be was right or 

 wrong the speaker did not know. There was one 

 characteristic which he should like to mention, 

 and that was Darwin's immense sympathy with 

 the struggles of all young students or men in- 

 ': in science, and nothing would have given 

 him greater satisfaction than to think that that 

 statue had acted as a beacon to some youth 



anxious to make science his career in the world. 

 It was curious to think that probably the only 

 scientific training he had as a youth was a smatter- 

 ing of chemistry that he had from his brother 

 Erasmus, which earned for him the nickname of 

 ' Gas ' in the school. He was called before the 

 great Dr. Butler and reprimanded as a pnco-curante ; 

 but his life's work had had a great deal to do in 

 sweeping away or diminishing the very mediaeval 

 form of education that existed in his day. As 

 regards the members of the family and their sense 

 of gratitude, they could understand how difficult 

 it was for him to adequately express all he felt 

 on that occasion, but he would say that the 

 statue seemed quite admirable. The figure gave 

 Darwin's alertness, and the easy, natural way in 

 which he used to sit, with none of the professor 

 about it." 



Professor G. H. Darwin also spoke upon 

 memories conveyed to him by his father of the 

 old Shrewsbury schooldays, confirming the horror 

 of the philosopher for dry-as-dust education by 

 classics alone ; but he added that his father always 

 looked back upon his schooldays with affection. 

 He agreed with his brother upon the admirable 

 likeness of his father produced by Mr. Montford. 

 When, however, he and his brother saw the statue 

 in the clay they felt that the hands were incorrect. 

 It was arranged that one of them should provide 

 the model for the hands, and it happened that 

 Professor G. H. Darwin's hands were chosen. 

 They thus appear exactly modelled in the statue, 

 which fact adds a point of great interest to the 

 portrait. 



FLOWERING OF DEAD-NETTLE. 

 By C. E. Britton-. 



\ \ ".MEN reading Mr. Meehan's remarks on the 



ers and flowering of that form of 



: furfunum known as L. incisum in America 



'inti ;, as reminded of a paper entitled 



and communicated to the 



Lubbock Field Club during September, 1894. In 



this paper I treated of the flowers and fertilization 



. plants, and, among others, of the 



id-nettles, more especially 



< h and L incijnm.the latter other- 



under its synonyms, L. hybridum and 



1. I have looked up the MS. of the 



paper and venture to send the following noti 



• :ich I have extracted 

 ll as read before the field Club on that 



rfX3.\ 



i those 

 iants thai 



1 

 .1 botanists ranked it as 

 •rtd-ncltle. : 

 chief!;. 



being about as long as the calyx. In the ' Students' 



Flora ' Hooker regards it as a sub-species, but 



most field botanists, I believe, are inclined to rank 



it as a species. I have never seen any reference to 



the cleistogamic (') flowers of this species, but during 



cold, unsettled weather, such as we experience 



in the early part of the year, cleistogamic flowers 



do occur. I first met with the plant about 



Orpington, in Kent, during the early part of 



March last. Being previously unacquainted with 



the plant, I gathered a good quantity of it, and 



■ the common red dead-nettle for the purpose 



of comparing the two. I noticed at the time that 



aved red dead-nettle was bearing 



immature fruit, expanded flowers were very scarce, 



or absent, though flower-buds were numerous. 



...1: dlmorpbli 1 ol 



plsnti. It Is pri ordinal y fully- 



1 whlcb tbodi velopi 1 



> Mid pi duci 



Bed re 1 tl 



pen 1 !>• H. 



.1 1 ■*»>'>. ■■ ' I- ' " 



In |, (Toront ordei 



: ■ 



I 2 



