480 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ESSAYS ON EVOLUTION. 

 By Professor E. B. Poulton, D.Sc, &c. 



A Critical Examination by the Rev. Professor G. Henslow, 

 M.A., F.L.S., &c. 



This very interesting collection of ten essays, with an appendix and 

 analytical index, is based upon lectures delivered between 1889 and 1907. 

 The essays deal with most of the important matters connected with 

 evolution as accounted for by Darwin's theory of " The Origin of Species 

 by Means of Natural Selection." The author observes in the preface 

 that, "above all it is the experience of the student of living nature 

 which inspires confidence in the theory." * Darwin's own confidence in 

 1859 is also given in the Introduction in the words : "I cannot possibly 

 believe that a false theory would explain so many classes of facts as I 

 think it certainly does explain." t I will refer to these quotations again. 



As the entire book is based on Natural Selection, the critic must ask 

 the question, Is Natural Selection capable of accounting for the facts 

 recorded, especially those connected with mimicry among insects, which 

 occupy so large a part of the book that it might have well formed the 

 subject of a volume by itself ? 



The eighth essay is entitled " Natural Selection the Cause of Mimetic 

 Resemblance and Common Warning Colours," so that the present writer 

 feels justified in endeavouring to prove that Natural Selection, as Darwin 

 described it, is quite inadequate to account for them, inasmuch as no 

 trace of support or proof is supplied. 



In criticizing Mr. Bateson's remarks,. Professor Poulton observes : 

 " Instead of making observations fit the hypothesis, a more original 

 method is to discourage the study by which awkward facts are likely 

 to be yielded. That, in few words, is the treatment accorded by Bateson 

 to adaptation." t I would venture to ask if the author himself has done 

 otherwise, or if he has not ignored adaptation, as realized {without natural 

 selection) by Darwin in 1876, and by all ecologists of to-day. There is 

 no reference to this in the book before us. 



Professor Poulton adds that " Professor J. B. Farmer, F.R.S., has 

 recently maintained that the explanation which Natural Selection offers 

 of the origin and growth of certain adaptive features in plants not only 

 fails to explain the phenomena, but actually stands in the way of an 

 inquiry into the sequence of events by which they are developed in the 

 individual." § 



The author illustrates his objection to this by noticing that " the 

 pigments of the moths had, as a whole, faded far more than those 

 of the butterflies [in cases of Oriental insects]. It at once occurred 



* Preface, v. 



X Introduction, p. xliii. 



f Introduction, xxvi. 

 § hoc. cit. xliv, note, 



