258 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [SEPTEMBER, 1915. 
An article in Nature, entitled ‘‘ Evolution the other way about,” has 
just caught our eye. It isa review ofa book entitled Histoire de ’Involution 
Naturelle, by Dr. E. Marconi, who apparently views the current ideas 
about Evolution from an inverted standpoint. ‘The mistake the 
evolutionists have made in contemplating the stream of life,” he asserts, 
is not a little one; they have actually mistaken the direction of the current.” 
Our first idea was that the whole thing might be an elaborate joke, but we 
are assured that “the author is obviously sincere and in earnest.” The 
reviewer remarks that when he read the words “involution naturelle” on 
the title page he hoped that some light would be cast on Prof. Bateson’s 
hard saying: ‘“‘ We may as well see whether we are limited to the old view 
that evolutionary progress is from the simple to the complex, and whether 
after all it is conceivable that the process was the other way about.” The 
idea now appears to have been considerably elaborated, but the results 
are just as disappointing as might have been expected. It may be 
summed up in a phrase. We are told that “from an original perfect 
manifestation of life man has fallen, and the ape and the tiger, the mole 
and the bat are his descendants.” 
Whether the author got down to Orchids is not stated, but his views on 
their descent would certainly be interesting, for we have recently seen that 
they are separated from unicellular plants by an enormous interval. It 
never occurred to us, however, to view the matter from the other end, 
and it remains for Dr. Marconi to tell us what the first Orchid was like, and 
how it got down to Neuwiedia—in which three anthers are normally 
developed—and beyond it, for the matter obviously does not end there. 
The reviewer reminds us that the arch-heresy has been suggested before, 
and describes it as an extraordinary topsy-turvy interpretation of the world, 
which recalls a character in a certain novel who could only move about on 
his head. We remember the circumstance to which allusion is made, 
and our own conclusions thereon (O.R., xxii. p. 261). But is it not, after 
all, an over-elaborated joke ? 
A correspondent writes to complain of the number of hybrids of 
unrecorded or erroneously recorded parentage that appear in the Press; in 
one case cited it is alleged that both parentage and raiser are wrong. We 
have endeavoured to obtain the information for any necessary correction, 
but hitherto without result, so that the matter had better wait for the 
present. The difficulty is how to remedy the evil. The importance of 
keeping full records has been urged over and over again, and we can only 
repeat that neglect of it is creating all the difficulties. 
