THE ANNUAL MEETING 137 
seed is not there to produce the flower, but the flower is impor- 
tant as necessary for the production of seed. 
“ The popular ignorance of the commonest plants is pheno- 
menal, and the most improbable statements are accepted as 
facts on the slightest evidence. I remember once calling on Mr. 
Darwin, and he told me that some time before he had a letter 
from a gentleman asking him if he had heard that the beans in 
Lincolnshire had all grown that year the wrong way up in the 
pods. Mr. Darwin was too courteous to contradict his corre- 
spondent, but wrote asking for a few of the pods. He had just 
got the answer, which he showed me, and it was something to 
this effect : — 
“ ‘ Dear Mr. Darwin, — Your letter — or rather mine to you — 
has given me a great deal of trouble. As soon as I got it I 
looked at my own beans, but they were all the right way up. 
I then rode over to my friend who told me about the beans. He 
said he had not looked at them himself, and referred me to a gentle- 
man at the other end of the county. I then rode over to him, but 
he only sent me on to another friend ; and to cut a long story 
short, 1 have been riding all over the county after those beans, 
and at last I have come to the conclusion that it is all a mistake, 
and our beans are the right way up after all.’ 
“ A great many people seem to think that animals and plants 
are only to be studied either from books or in collections. This 
opinion is not confined to non-naturalists. Many years ago my 
friend Mr. Stainton sent a circular to entomologists asking them 
to mention what groups they studied, and whether they 
collected and were willing to exchange specimens. When he 
published his list Mr. Newman, one of our best naturalists, 
wrote a review of it, and coming to my name he said ; ‘ Mr. 
Lubbock tells us he studies Hymenoptera, but has no collection. 
What then does he study ? Books ? Books are blind guides, 
Mr. Lubbock.’ It never seemed to occur to him that one 
might study the anatomy, physiology, and life-history without 
having a collection. 
“ Not, of course, that I would under-value collections. They 
are very important, and in some cases necessary. But a 
collector is not necessarily an observer. Collecting takes up 
a great deal of time. Moreover, the National and other collec- 
tions are open to most of us. Botanical collections, however, 
are less time-taking than those of insects, and most botanists 
find it useful to have a collection of the plants of their own 
neighbourhood, and of any special group they may be studying. 
But it seems to me that any one who is going to take up 
Nature Study would do well to select some part of the field 
which has been left, so to say, fallow. Virgin soils give the best 
crop. 
“Now so far as our British flowering plants are concerned, 
and with the exception of certain variable groups, we cannot 
expect very many additions to the list. Some, no doubt, there 
