LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



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ducted observations would be of the greatest interest both at our 

 meetings and in our publications. The remarkable success which 

 has attended the long-continued, persevering and well-combined ob- 

 servations of Mr. Darwin should stimulate others to follow in the 

 same track ; and much as he has disclosed, much as he has still in 

 store for us, his every page shows how far even he is yet from having 

 exhausted the subject. I do not refer to those speculations on the 

 origin of species, which have excited so much controversy ; for the 

 discussion of that question, when considered only with reference to 

 the comparative plausibility of opposite hypotheses, is beyond the 

 province of our Society. Attempts to bring it forward at our meet- 

 ings were very judiciously checked by my predecessor in this Chair, 

 and I certainly should be sorry to see our time taken up by theo- 

 retical arguments not accompanied by the disclosure of new facts or 

 observations. But we must all admire that patient study of the 

 habits of life, with that great power of combining facts, which has 

 revealed to us so much of surprising novelty in the economy of 

 nature. The wonderful contrivances for the cross-fertilization of 

 Orchids, so graphically detailed in Mr. Darwin's new work, and 

 which rival all that had been previously observed in the singular 

 economy of insect life, had been hitherto unsuspected even by those 

 botanists who had specially devoted themselves to that family. And 

 this is but a sample of that extraordinary variety of facts collected 

 by him and brought to bear upon his theories, which must be patent 

 to every impartial reader of his works, whilst all who have had an 

 opportunity of watching his modus operandi are well aware that he 

 never brings forward an observation without taking every precaution 

 to ensure its accuracy, thoroughly sifting every circumstance that 

 appears to militate against it. It is indeed to be hoped that, with- 

 out waiting for the completion of the great work that is to embody 

 the whole series of his pieces justificatives, Mr. Darwin will continue 

 to illustrate separate portions of his subject, each one of which is 

 sufficient to give a lasting name to its author. In the meantime 

 let every lover of nature who, from his residence in the country, may 

 have leisure and opportunities of observing, follow in the track thus 

 opened out. If he will carefully watch the gradual development 

 and daily habits, at all seasons of the year, of the animal or vegetable 

 productions which are around him in the greatest abundance, 

 he will detect many a curious arrangement by which nature, in 

 causing animals and plants, or different species of each, to act and 

 react on each other, provides for the perpetuation of species, races v 



