1890 PHYSIOLOGICAL SELECTION 213 



P.S. — Any contributions to Correvon's garden 

 (however small) would be thankfully received by him. 

 Possibly his garden may be of some use to English 

 botanists ; if so, you might send the hat round, and 

 collect any coppers that fall. 



To Professor Thiselton Dyer. 



18 Cornwall Terrace, Eegent's Park, N.W. : January 7, 1889. 



My dear Dyer, — Knowing what a busy man 

 you are, I never expected you to answer my last 

 letter, and therefore it has come as an agreeable sur- 

 prise. Por no doubt you will believe me when I say 

 that I value much more communications which are 

 opposed to physiological selection than those in its 

 favour ; the former show me better what has to be 

 done in the way of verification, as well as the general 

 views which may be taken on the subject by other 

 mindfi. And most of all is this the case when anyone 

 like yourself gives me the benefit of opinions which are 

 formed by a trained experience in botany, seeing that 

 here I am myself such a sorry ignoramus. And I 

 willingly confess that your strongly expressed opinion 

 has seriously shaken my hopes for physiological selec- 

 tion, notwithstanding that some German botanists 

 think otherwise. Nevertheless, I still think that it 

 is worth while to devote some years to experimental 

 testing, and then, if the results are against me — well, 

 I shall be sorry to have spent so much time over a 

 wild flower chase, and to have kicked up so much 

 scientific dust in the process; but I will not be 

 ashamed to acknowledge that Nature has said No. 



