102 VARIATIONS, DUE TO REVERSION. 



that Herbert Spencer saw this, and was loth to con- 

 tribute to the downfall of his gossamer structure, may- 

 alone explain the omission, by a man of his philo- 

 sophical acumen, of such well known phenomena as 

 are those of Reversion. 



On page 77, Vol. ii, Animals and Plants, &c, Darwin 

 says : 



"S(5me flowers have almost certainly become more 

 or less completely peloric through reversion. Cory- 

 dalis tuberosa probably has one of its two nectaries 

 colorless, destitute of nectar, only half the size of the 

 other, and therefore, to a certain extent, in a rudimen- 

 tary state; the pistil is curved towards the perfect 

 nectary, and the hood, formed of the inner petals, 

 slips off the pistil and stamens in one direction alone, 

 so that, when a bee sucks the perfect nectary, the 

 stigma and stamens are exposed and rubbed against 

 the insect's body. In several closely allied genera, as 

 in Dielytra, &c, there are two perfect nectaries, the 

 pistil is straight, and the hood slips off on either side, 

 according as the bee sucks either nectary. Now, I 

 have examined several flowers of Gorydalis tuberosa, in 

 which both nectaries were equally developed and con- 

 tained nectar; in this, we see only the re-development 

 of a partially aborted organ ; but, with this re-develop- * 

 ment, the pistil becomes straight, and the hood slips 

 off in either direction; so that these flowers have 

 acquired the perfect structure, so well adapted for 

 insect agency, of Dielytra and its allies. We cannot 

 attribute these coadapted modifications to chance, or 

 to correlated variability; we must attribute them to a 

 primordial condition of the species." 



Is it not rather inconsistent, in an author, according 

 to whose theory, every structure, coadaptation, rela- 



