392 PKOVISIONAL HYPOTHESIS Chap. XXVII. 



like those on his neck, whilst the female has one of common 



w 



feathers. In feather-footed pigeons and fowls, feathers like 

 those on the wing arise from the outer side of the legs and 

 toes. Even the elemental parts of the same feather may be 

 transposed ; for in the Sebastopol goose, barbules are developed 

 on the divided filaments of the shaft. 



Analogous cases are of such frequent occurrence with plants 

 that they do not strike us with sufficient surprise. Super- 

 numerary petals, stamens, and pistils, are often produced. I 

 have seen a leaflet low down in the compound leaf of Vieia 

 sativa converted into a tendril, and a tendril possesses many 

 peculiar properties, such as spontaneous movement and irrita- 

 bility. The calyx sometimes assumes, either wholly or 

 stripes, the colour and texture of the corolla. Stamens are so fi 

 quently converted, more or less completely, into petals, that such 

 cases are passed over as not deserving notice ; but as petals have 

 special functions to perform, namely, to protect the included 

 organs, to attract insects, and in not a few cases to guide their 

 entrance by well-adapted contrivances, we can hardly account 

 for the conversion of stamens into petals merely by unnatural 

 or superfluous nourishment. Again, the edge of a petal may 

 occasionally be found including one of the highest products of 

 the plant, namely the pollen ; for instance, I have seen in an 

 Ophrys a pollen-mass with its curious structure of little packets, 

 united together and to the caudicle by elastic threads, formed 

 between the edges of an upper petal. The segments of the 

 calyx of the common pea have been observed partially converted 

 into carpels, including ovules, and with their tips converted into 

 stigmas. Numerous analogous facts could be given. 50 



I do not know how physiologists look at such facts as the 

 foregoing. According to the doctrine of pangenesis, the free 

 and superabundant gemmules of the transposed organs are 

 developed in the wrong place, from uniting with wrong cells 



gates ot cells duri 



and this would 



follow from a slight modification in the elective affinity of such 

 cells, or possibly of certain gemmules. Nor ought we to feel 

 much surprise at the affinities of cells and gemmules varying 



50 Moquin-Tandon, < Teratologic Veg.,' 1841, pp. 218, 220, 353. For the case 

 of the pea, see 'Gardener's Chron.,' 1866, p. 897. 







