EVOLUTION AND ENVIRONMENT. 
165 
fruit, containing from eighteen to twenty-four of the triangular 
nuts. Most people express surprise when told that the nuts 
grow in this kind of wooden box, as they are seldom sold in the 
outer case. The cocoa-bean grows in a similar manner in a 
long hard-shelled pod. It is possible in this way also to obtain 
from the importers of foreign fruits a cocoa-nut with its outer 
•case on, beginning to grow, and sending out a green shoot. If 
the nut is planted in a large pot and kept in heat one may see 
the very interesting growth of a baby cocoa-palm, so beautifully 
described by Kingsley in his book At Last. Amongst the things 
sold by Whiteley are long stems of sugar-cane newly-imported. 
These are worth possessing as showing the structure of grass 
on a large scale, but I would add a word of caution about 
handling the leaves. They are covered with minute spicules 
which, entering the pores of the skin, are apt to cause great 
pain and discomfort. I think I have said enough to show how, 
in various ways, one may keep enriching one’s collection. A 
visit to a new place always suggests to my mind fresh chances 
of meeting with curios, and thus the possession of a home 
museum gives a pleasant interest to our walks, whether they 
are in town or country. 
E. Brightwen. 
Tlic Grove, Great Stanmore. 
EVOLUTION AND ENVIRONMENT. 
S you have admitted the Rev. G. Henslow’s articles 
on the above-named subject into the columns of 
Nature Notes, you have, I am sure, done both 
wisely and well in not only being ready to admit 
but in inviting the opinions of anti-evolutionists on his theories. 
But first of all, what is evolution ? There is nothing like 
beginning at the beginning. 
Herbert Spencer, whom Professor Tyndall calls “ the Apostle 
of the Understanding,” tells us “ Evolution is a change from 
indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent hetero- 
genity, through continuous differentiations and integrations.” A 
definition, this, admirable for its lucidity and simplicity of 
diction, no doubt, but which does not seem to have taught me 
anything very new or valuable. 
In the “Origin of Species,” by Mr. Darwin, which, by-the- 
way, never tells us what the origin of his “ origin ” was, anyone 
who takes the trouble to count will find in that one volume no 
fewer than just seven hundred such satisfactory proofs of his 
dogma as the following : “ I believe,” “ I think,” “ probably,” 
“possibly,” “no doubt,” “we need not doubt,” “it appears,” 
&c., &c. 
