18 



The Naturalist. 



Darwinism would say of its descent, that it is no true guide, and 

 probably Darwinism is right in so doing ; for if descent is to be the 

 criterion, then we have only perhaps two or three real species and 

 numberless varieties, for all are descendants of a few primeval forms. 

 This is a reductio ad ahsurdum. 



Now, my idea of a species is this. There are a number of individuals 

 which, although all more or less differing, yet all agree in possessing a 

 certain number of characters, which, although themselves constantly 

 varying in individuals, yet for the purposes of classification, and of 

 indicating to others by a word or two what we mean, we place all 

 together under one name, and these individuals we agree to call a 

 species, although we are not at all clear about their descent. 



Thus, can we be in any way certain of the close descent from any 

 recent forms, of the Eosa alpina without prickles, of the Alps, in 

 France, in Germany, and in Scotland 1 Now, there are eight so-called 

 species of Rosa without prickles, or nearly so, ranked under the general 

 sub-generic term of Alpince ; one of these alpina occurs only on the 

 Swiss Alps ; another, penduUna, has been found in Scotland, and so 

 on. May it not be, on the Darwinian hypothesis — nay, is it not 

 absolutely true, — that these were what we may call one species, say at 

 the time of the glacial epoch, growing all nearly alike from the Alps to 

 the Scottish mountains, over an almost ice-bound area, with but few 

 spots where vegetation could survive ; that on the retreat of the 

 glaciers, owing to the rising of the land and other causes, belts of sea 

 and chains of hills cut them off from one another. Those that remained 

 on the Scottish hills, by the change of circumstances, or environment, 

 as Mr. Herb. Spencer calls it, became developed into the form we now call 

 pendulina ; those on the Swiss Alps, owing to a different change in the 

 environment, developed into the form we now call alpina ; those on 

 the French and Spanish borders into the form we now call pyrenaica, 

 and so on with the rest. Are these forms now so different in certain 

 characters, then, all distinct species, or are they eight varieties of one 

 species ? As I have before stated that my own idea is that a species 

 is merely an arbitrary term used to express what we know, or perhaps 

 what we do not know, would not the proper answer be this : They 

 were once one species, but now they are eight. 



Were we to carry the analogy still further — though not by any 

 means to its final stage, — at an immensely remote period may we not, 

 reasoning from a Darwinian point of view, deduce that the nine sub- 

 divisions of the genus Bosa (including in Europe now some 168 species) 

 were then only nine species, which have since developed by change of 



