6 Proceeding's of the lioyal Physical Society. 



favourable conditions. It is further obvious that, as the primary object of 

 investigation is the struggle for existence with its correlated phenomena, the 

 natural conditions to which attention should be directed are those under 

 which life is most luxuriant. This suggests that our field of operations 

 should be the Tropics. It should, further, deal with terrestrial rather than 

 marine life, for the obvious reason that we are so greatly handicapped in 

 our means of observation of marine organisms under their natural conditions. 

 What is needed then is an organisation which will make it possible for 

 able young Biological observers with a sound preliminary training to devote 

 a number of years to the accumulation not indeed of facts for Darwin, but of 

 facts bearing upon Darwinian theories. It would be necessary for each 

 observer to remain a number of years in the field. Any organisation which 

 simply enabled promising young University graduates to spend a year in the 

 Tropics would do harm rather than good to the object in view, for as is well 

 known to anyone who has worked in the Tropics at least a year is consumed 

 in the necessary preliminary work of getting a general idea of the local fauna 

 and local conditions, and in learning to observe under the new and unfamiliar 

 circumstances. Most workers who have had occasion to spend two or three 

 years in Biological work in the Tropics will probably have realised how im- 

 perfect and indeed erroneous their observations are apt to be during a more or 

 less prolonged probationary period, owing partly to their untrained powers of 

 observing under new and unfamiliar conditions, and perhaps still more to 

 their tendency to interpret the observations according to academic teaching. 

 The first year or more then of such workers should be devoted simply to 

 training themselves how to observe ; the really valuable results would come 

 later on. It is perhaps too much to hope that some beneficent millionaire 

 will build such a monument to Darwin's memory as an institute upon these 

 lines, but should he do so there can be no question as to the magnificent 

 results that will accrue to Evolutionary Science. 



Mendelism. 



The Natural Selectionist has received during the past few years a welcome 

 reinforcement through the rediscovery of the experimental results obtained 

 by Mendel. It looks as if Mendelian segregation were probably a general 

 character of inheritance. It seems improbable that the principle should hold 

 for certain characters and not for all. Apparent exceptions, such as the 

 case of Mulattos, will probably find a Mendelian explanation later. While 

 admitting the fact of Mendelian inheritance, I do not find so far any reason 

 to depart from the view which I have consistently held since the republication 

 of Mendel's paper, viz., that the main importance of his discoveries lie — (1) 



