138 
NATURE NOTES 
will be, but this department of botany has been worked at 
much more than others. 
“ When we come to the structure, physiology, and life-history, 
we have indeed a most interesting field of study before us. Yet 
I wonder how often it has occurred to any of the thousands who 
admire flowers to ask themselves, for instance, why a rose has 
five petals, why the lime has a round leaf, the Spanish chestnut 
a sword-shaped leaf ; why some pines have long leaves and some 
short ones. 
“ I remember a story of two botanists who were much inter- 
ested in mosses. One said to the other that he had often 
wondered why the teeth of the capsules differed so much in 
different species. ‘ Oh,’ said his friend, ‘ I see no difficulty. 
If it was not for those differences, how in the world should we 
be able to distinguish the species from one another.’ I once 
heard a lady suggest that the reason of the great number of 
bulbous plants in South Africa was because the Dutch are so 
fond of bulbs ! 
“ We have in the last number of Nature Notes an interest- 
ing illustration of the problems open even as regards one of 
our commonest and most familiar wild flowers — the primrose. 
“ I remember very well, though it is more than forty years 
ago, hearing at the Linnaean Society, in 1862, Mr. Darwin’s 
memorable paper in which he suggested the explanation — I doubt 
not familiar to you all — of the two forms, the pin-eyed and the 
thrum-eyed, which occur in both the cowslip and the primrose. 
Sir Joseph Hooker, in rising to discuss it, said it was quite a 
revelation to him. He said he had been till that evening like 
Peter Bell in Wordsworth’s poem : — 
The primro.se on the riv'er brim 
A yellow primrose was to him ; 
And it was nothing more. 
He fully accepted Darwin’s explanation, and 1 myself have 
little doubt it is in the main correct. Mr. Edward Bell, how- 
ever, has questioned it in a special work,* and again in a paper 
‘On the Pollination of the Primrose,’ in Nature Notes for 
April. This paper has a pathetic interest, as the author, who 
had been for some time in bad health, died before it was pub- 
lished. The Editor has some wise remarks in reply in the May 
number, with which in the main I concur, and especially that 
the question has no decisive bearing on what Mr. Bell calls 
Darwinism. Mr. Bell scarcely appreciated, I think, the cases of 
insect visits which are on record, and the fact that while Darwin 
attributed the fertilisation to night-flying moths, most of the 
observations ha\e been made by day. At the same time I 
admit, and it is for this reason that I have referred to it, that 
even as regards these beautiful, common, and familiar species, 
however probable Darwin’s view may be, the question cannot be 
* “ The Primrose and Darwinism.” l?y a Field Naturalist. 
