ME. I. ANDEESON-HENEY ON HTBEIDISM. 
159 
XVII. On some facts connected with Hybridism. In a letter to 
A. Murray, Esq., by I. Anderson-Henet, Esq. 
Toir will remember my writing to you a letter of December 24, 
1870, which was afterwards printed under the heading of " Hy- 
bridism V. Mimicry " in the ' Grardeners' Chronicle ' of January 7, 
1871, p. 10 ; and if you think what I have now to communicate 
deserving of being submitted to the Scientific Committee, or of 
being published, I must beg special reference to that communica- 
tion. 
You will remember that it was written by me as confirmatory of 
a remark by you, in a leading article of the ' Gardeners' Chroni- 
cle " (1870, p. 1639), that " after the second generation of hybrids, 
tbose which do not revert to the type break out into an overflow 
of irregular variation, which supplies many of his most remark- 
able sports to the horticulturist." And I observed how remark- 
ably that observation was illustrated, not after the second gener- 
ation, but in the first generation from the hybrid ; and I referred 
you to Darwin's then recent publication of ' Animals and Plants,' 
vol. i. p. 400, where he did me the honour to cite two experiments 
of mine, with only one of which I have now to trouble you : he 
there says, " Mr. Henry fertilized Arahis hlepharophylla with 
pollen of A. Soyeri \ and the pods thus produced, of which he was 
so kind as to send me detailed measurements and sketches, were 
much larger in all their dimensions than those naturally pro- 
duced by either of the male or female parent species." And, 
as I then went on to observe, Mr. Darwin had there most 
singularly anticipated the very result I had then to communicate, 
wben he added : — " In a future chapter we shall see that the 
organs of vegetation in hybrid plants, independently of the char- 
acter of either parent, are sometimes developed to a monstrous 
size ; and the increased size of the pods in the foregoing cases 
may bean analogous fact." Mr. Darwin alluded to the large size 
of the pods of the above Arahis crop, and of a Ehododendron, 
which I had communicated to him. 
But I must still so far recapitulate. I had just two seed- 
pods of the above crop {Arahis hlepJiarophylla x A. Soyeri)^ 
both of which were one-half larger than the natural seed- pods 
of ^. hlepharophylla, the seed-bearer. Though so large, there was 
only one ripe seed in one pod and seven in the other, of which 
only four were sound. I bad three or four plants only from 
