No. 507] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



L35 



nearly 350 genera of plants, represented by about 600 

 species (several of them in a number of contrasted forms 

 and varieties), are made the subject of comment. No 

 insignificant proportion of this large number were under 

 observation or experimental cultivation through a con- 

 siderable number of years— the series on which the 

 "Cross and Self -Fertilization" volume was based having 

 been grown in numbers and with painstaking care through 

 more than a decade; and the plants measured and the 

 seeds counted were very many. No observer was so 

 insignificant that his observations escaped analysis if 

 they came to the knowledge of the great naturalist, though 

 Darwin was sorely tried by the positive statement of 

 some non-existent facts ; and some of the prettiest work- 

 ings of his mind are shown in the elimination of untenable 

 conclusions which had been drawn by predecessors whose 

 observations were recorded in sufficient detail to permit 

 another to winnow them afresh. Enthusiasm in fitting 

 his own observations into his theories occasionally led 

 to error when facts were scanty or incompletely made 

 out, but in such cases these were usually employed with 

 a word of caution and errors were eliminated with a 

 charming candor when discovered subsequently; and few 

 writers have more gracefully accepted rectifications by 

 others— even when bluntly phrased or embodied in 

 aggressive criticism, as was sometimes the case. 



First, last and always, his studies were directed to the 

 species question, but in his pollination studies, as in 

 every other field that he entered, he bent himself to col- 

 lateral details with the zeal of a specialist. He was never 

 oblivious to the treacherous frailty of small numbers and 

 few series; but his innate soundness of judgment was 

 checked and confirmed, here and there, through the re- 

 handling of his data by one to whom the analysis of 

 figures was a specialty. The dainty instruments of pre- 

 cision in the use of which physiologists train their under- 

 graduate students, were neither used nor desired by him ; 



