THE ORCEI) Review 
VoL. XVI.] AUGUST, 1908. [No. 188. 
THE DARWIN-WALLACE JUBILEE CELEBRATION. 
On July 1st, 1858, an epoch-making essay entitled ‘‘On the tendency ot 
Species to form Varieties, and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species 
by Natural Means of Selection,” by Charles Robert Darwin and Alfred 
Russell Wallace, was read at a meeting of the Linnean Society. It preceded 
the publication of the classical ‘Origin of Species” by about sixteen 
months. The result has been to revolutionise every branch of Natural 
History, and the Linnean Society decided to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary 
by the holding of a special session, and the issue of a commemorative 
volume. No apology is necessary for alluding to the subject here, for the 
Orchid family was one with which Darwin worked very largely, and his 
“ Fertilisation of Orchids by Insects,” published in 1862, contained a mass 
of details for which, as he explained, he had not space in his earlier work. 
The Jubilee celebration took the form of a special afternoon meeting, 
which was held at the Institution of Civil Engineers, Westminster, and an 
evening conversazione and reception at Burlington House, and at the latter 
Orchids were well represented. The commemorative volume, which is to 
contain an account of the proceedings at the original meeting and at the 
Jubilee celebration, will be awaited with interest. 
The proceedings at the afternoon meeting were opened by the President, 
Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S., who explained the objects of the meeting and 
welcomed the delegates in a brief speech. The Darwin-Wallace Medal, 
struck to commemorate the event, and containing a portrait of Darwin on one 
side and of Wallace on the reverse, was then presented to the surviving 
author, Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, this being in gold, while the same in 
silver was given to Sir J. D. Hooker, Prof. E. Haeckel, Prof. E. Strasburgher, 
Prof. A. Weismann, Dr. Francis Galton, and Sir E. Ray Lancaster, the 
claims of each recipient to the distinction being set forth, and received by 
the andience with enthusiasm. Dr. Wallace, in replying, spoke of the 
relations between Darwin and himself, remarking that the idea of the origin 
of species by natural selection occurred to Darwin some twenty years earlier 
than to himself, and also explained the circumstances which led them to the 
same solution of the problem independently. In early life both were ardent 
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