253 



EXPLANATIONS. 



than he- namely, Dr. Lindley — has stated on vhe same 

 subject. "At the request," says this learned person, 

 ** of the Marquis of Bristol, the Reverend Lord Arthur 

 Hervey, in the year 1843, sowed a handful of oats, treated 

 them in the manner recommended, by continually stop- 

 ping the flowering stems, and the produce, in 1844, has 

 bem for the most part ears of a very slender barley, hav- 

 ing much the appearance of rye, with a little wheat, and 

 some oats ; samples of which are, by the favor of Lord 

 Bristol, now before us." The learned writer then adverts 

 to the " extraordinary but certain fact, that in orchida- 

 ceous plants forms just as different as wheat, barley, rye, 

 and oats have been proved by the most rigorous evidence, 

 to be accidental variations of one common form, brought 

 about no one knows how, but before our eyes, and ren- 

 dered permanent by equally mysterious agency. Then, 

 says Reason, if they occur in orchidaceous plants, why 

 should they not also occur in corn plants ? for it is not 

 likely that such vagaries will be confined to one little 

 group in the vegetable kingdom ; it is more rational to 

 believe them to be a part of the general system of crea- 

 tion . . . How can we be sure, that wheat, rye, oats, 

 and barley are not all accidental off-sets from some unsus- 

 pected species?"* The reader will now be partly able 

 to judge of the value of the unsupported dictum of the 

 reviewer. 



There are many other facts that throw a strong light on 

 transmutation, both of plants and animals. So far from 

 there being any decisive proof against this theory, there 

 is no settled conclusion at this moment amongst natural- 

 ists as to what constitutes a species. " There is," sayj 

 Professor Henslow, 66 no law whatever hitherto established, 

 by which the limits of variation to a given species can bi 

 satisfactorily assigned, and until some such law be dis 

 covered, we cannot expect precision in the details of sys- 

 tematic botany."f " We have agreed," says Bicheno 

 " that a species shall be that distinct form, originally so 

 created, and producing by certain laws of generation others 

 like itself. There is this inconvenience attending the use 

 of it by naturalists, that it assumes as a fact that which, 

 In the present state of science, is in many cases a fit sub- 

 ject of inquiry ; namely, that species, according to our defi« 



* Gardener's Chronicle, August, 1844. 



f Magazine of Zoology and Botany, i., 116 



