362 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIII 



work, but rather that its perpetuation depends for the 

 most part upon other things than its so-called adaptations. 

 Few more perfect adaptations for their function can be 

 thought of than the digestive glands of insectivorous 

 plants, and yet there is no evidence in support of the idea 

 that such plants have been able to survive by reason of 

 these glands. The evolution of such a complex flower 

 as that of the orchid along lines that are parallel with the 

 evolution of the mouth parts of a special insect requires 

 a nicety of operation that seems staggering, and all the 

 more because the flower, at least, seems to have evolved 

 so far along the lines of zygomorphy as to be a source of 

 disadvantage rather than of advantage, an impossible 

 idea to the natural selectionist. The facts of regenera- 

 tion show, as pointed out so ably by Morgan, that plants 

 and animals are often in a position to make an instant 

 new reaction to conditions unlike those to which they have 

 ever been accustomed, and that these reactions may or 

 may not be advantageous ; in any case, natural selection 

 can have no possible connection with their origin. The 

 trend of the time, especially among botanists, is unmis- 

 takably toward the abandonment of natural selection as 

 a theory of evolution, but ecological work is finding a 

 dominant place for it as one of the controlling factors in 

 succession. The student of vegetation dynamics, more, 

 perhaps, than any other, finds displayed before him an 

 incessant struggle for existence; in the changing condi- 

 tions, the fitness of an old species to remain or of a new 

 species to displace, it is commonly a matter of profound 

 importance in the vegetative change produced. 



This is not the place to enter upon a discussion of those 

 evolutionary theories that to-day hold the foremost place. 

 We are awaiting with keen anticipation the noteworthy 

 symposium on evolution that is to make this meeting 

 historic. Suffice it to say that the downfall of the theory 

 of adaptation does not mean the downfall of epigenesis 

 or of extrinsic theories in general. The likelihood of a 

 profound influence of the external world upon the trend 



