112 
EOTAL HOETICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 
and more powerful than the more northern whites. But organi- 
zation is a higher test than mere strength. This, too, seems to 
be on the side of the Brazilian tribe. Mr. Bates so considers it ; 
and his reason is that, the essential quality of butterflies being 
flight, the type which has most attention paid to its wings and 
least to its legs must be highest of its order. Others think differ- 
ently, and say that a type which has had two of its limbs (its 
anterior legs) almost atrophied, cannot be so perfect an animal as 
one which has them all in perfection. But I agree with Mr. Bates 
on this point (at all events in his conclusion). The greater 
number of legs cannot be any indication of higher organization, 
or a centipede might dispute supremacy with ourselves, and push 
us from our stools. Multiplicity of subdivision or repetition of 
parts is acknowledged by all physiologists to be an indicator on 
inferiority of organization. The fewer limbs, that is, the simpler 
the apparatus that a creature can do its work with, the higher 
the perfection of the machine. Therefore, doubtless, Brazilian 
Danaids are the higher type ; and if (as I believe to be the case), 
in crosses of difficult accomplishment, the female is the higher 
parent, then the cross from which these mimics resulted was one 
by the males of the whites upon the females of the Danaids. 
In what I have above said as to one-sided crossing, I have 
assumed that in plant-hybridization the fact would be admitted ; 
but as it is in contradiction to the statement of so eminent an 
authority as Wichura, I shall remove all doubt from the subject 
by quoting Mr. Anderson- Henry. He says : — " I regret to differ 
from so great an authority as Wichura (who has maintained that 
* the products which arise from reciprocal crossing in plants, un- 
like those which are formed among animals, are perfectly alike '), 
and must venture to demur to the doctrine in more decided terms 
than Mr. Berkeley does. I have had so many instances of 
hybrids taking sometimes to one side and sometimes to another, 
hut most frequently to that of the mother, that to those who, like 
me, have tried their hand with many genera, it would be a matter 
of supererogation to give instances. I have had them by the 
score." 
But the mixed product also corresponds with another fact ob- 
served in hybridization. Mr. Anderson-Henry informs me that in 
some of his crossings of plants he has only succeeded in altering 
the flowers, the foliage continuing persistently the same as that of 
one of the parents. He has not succeeded in distributing the 
