Feb., 1913. The Queensland Naturalist. 243 
themselves, i.e., physiology, both of animals and plants, 
and insomuch as functions cannot be explained out of form 
alone, the student should be taught to adopt himself, as far 
as possible, the experimental method of inquiry. Quite 
simple appliances will indicate to him, for instance, that 
plants absorb fluids by their roots, and enable him to make 
the quantitative determination in this respect ; so also how 
they transpire ; their normal respiration ; their growth and 
the measure of its extent, the force of habit ; their relation to 
mechanical stimuli ; to that of gravity (geotropism) ; and 
to the stimuli of light (heliotropism) and chemicals 
(chemitropism). So also root pressure ; turgidity of tissues ; 
movements of sap ; and the simple facts of metabolism and 
transference of the food elements ; or, again, pollination and 
growth, fermentation, etc. 
With respect to Evolution as a branch of Biology, 
in variation he might be made to see for himself ; so also 
transformations and phases of growth exhibited not only 
by animals — insects especially — but by plants too. Heredity 
again, he might study experimentally, and the main principle 
of evolution might be inculcated and facts demonstrated 
that tend to support it. In this connection he might learn 
the principal conclusions arrived at as to how organisms 
modify and how species originate, as well as the principal 
factors determining geographical distribution. As to the 
phases of Biology — Ethology and Ecology, habits again 
should be observed and studied. Further, he should be led 
to note the relations between animals and plants, and the 
circumstances of their occurrence ; and in the case of the 
latter, their state and associations, as influenced by the 
determining factors of light or shade, heat or cold, dryness 
or humidity, formation and soil, conditions, elevation and 
exposure, the action and reaction between individual plants 
of the same and of different species under every circumstance 
of growth. So also with regard to animal life ; and, again, 
the relations inter se between plant and animal organisms. 
This latter division of the study of living things is 
appropriately termed Ecology. The scientific and general 
interest of this may be concluded from the fact that some 
investigators have regarded Biology of consisting almost 
exclusively in it. Thus Wiesner terms his account of the 
various phenomena of inter-relation between plant and 
environment Pflanzenbiologie.'' {cf. “ Wiesner'' Biologie der 
Pflanzen 1889). And it is this aspect of living things that 
appeals alike to the philosophic naturalist and traveller as 
well as to he that delights to both dwell and sing in the 
realm of poetry. Our earliest botanical traveller, — 
Theophrastus, was essentially an Ecologist. 
But lest it may be thought that this plan for the study 
of living things has reference only to the work of the schools 
