1883. ] Editors’ Table. 295 
Professor Grant Allen, in his book on the Colors of Flowers, 
in the Nature series, goes behind the law of natural selection in 
the following words:1 “ Not only can we say why such a color, 
once happening to appear, has been favored in the struggle for 
existence, but why that color should ever make its appearance in 
e first place, which is a condition precedent to its being favored 
or selected at all.” * * . “ May we not say that it ought always 
to be the object of naturalists in this manner to show not only 
why such and such a spontaneous variation should have been 
favored wherever it occurred, but also to show why and how it 
could ever have occurred at all ?” 
As if to contribute to this view of evolution, Dr. Hubrecht, of 
Leyden, endeavors to show in a recent lecture, published in Wa- 
ture, the importance of Acceleration as a factor in the development 
of organic forms. 
—— The best advice to the biologist of the present day is 
that he should work as though time were eternity. The 
best work in art or literature is done by those who have a 
genius for patient, careful, thoughtful labor, expended on methods 
and minor details as well as in elaborating the central idea before 
them. The motto of the biologist should be Festina lente, and the 
charge on the field of his shield should be a turtle. Undoubtedly 
e Germans, whether botanists or zodlogists, are at the head of 
the world’s workers in biological science. This is not so much 
because of their superior talent or genius, but because of their lack 
of nervousness and impulsiveness, which induces an admirable 
patience and a commendable slowness and calmness, and yet well 
if not quite, gained a place beside mathematical and allied studies 
_ 48 an exact science. 
1 Page 119. 
