5 
Larval propagations can, however, only be interpreted as a partial phase , 
not as the whole and complete act of genesis. 
The" President, in inviting discussion, remarked upon the elaborate 
character of the paper, and observed that the subject treated of in it 
reminded him of a toy, common in his youth, of a number of eggs, one 
within another ; only, to render the comparison more complete, it would 
be necessary that each egg should grow and develope while it was being 
e skinned/ 
Dr. Fripp spoke of the presence of adipose tissue in the early stages, 
and of the subsequent discovery of a sexual organ, which might be re- 
garded as a sort of continuation of the original formative matter. 
Mr. Beattie enquired whether matter was not perfectly passive ? 
Dr. Fripp quite agreed with the last speaker in that point, and con- 
tended that this rendered the idea of the phenomena of reproduction nearer 
to that of the phenomena of growth. 
Mr. Leipner was doubtful to what extent the phenomena described 
differed from parthenogenesis, in which the male element present was, so 
to "speak, hereditary, while in true genesis the elements were divided 
between two individuals. 
Dr. Frtpp doubted whether there was such a thing as true partheno- 
genesis ; if it did exist, it was not anatomically distinguishable from the 
other. It was still in dispute whether the Coccus- egg was a true egg, if it 
was acknowledged that an egg was a thing which required fertilisation 
before it would convert. 
Mr : W. Sanders enquired whether the development of the seed into 
the tree was not an analagous process. 
Mr. W. L. Carpenter did not think so, as the seed did not require 
fertilisation, but developed by a process of growth, or gemmation, a term 
which had long been used also to describe the mode of reproduction among 
the zoophytes and other lower animals. 
Mr. A. Leipner concurred in the remarks of the last speaker, and said 
that the only correlation in the vegetable kingdom to the process described 
by Dr. Fripp was among the Ferns, Equisetaceae, &c, the spores of which 
developed first into the prothallium, which acted as a sort of « nurse' to 
the antheridia and archegoma, organs corresponding to the essential parts 
of the flower in flowering plants ; then the antherozoids fertilised the germ- 
cells contained in the archegonia, and young plants were speedily 
developed. 
