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susceptible of being fecundated by a foreign pollen, properly se- 
lected ? Is an appreciable imperfect condition sometimes observed 
in the pistil and the ovules?” 
“3. Do hybrids which reproduce themselves by their own 
fecundation sometimes preserve invariable characters for several 
generations, and are they able to become the type of constant 
races, or do they always return, on the contrary, to the forms of 
their ancestors after several generations, as recent observations 
seem to indicate?” 
The Ideas of Godron .- — The two chief competitors under the 
Academy’s offer were Charles Naudin of the Museum of Natural 
History* at Paris, and D. A. Godron of the University of Nancy, 
the prize being awarded to the former. The papers of both 
appeared in Vol. 19 of the Annales des Sciences Naturelles 
(Botanique), 4 me. Serie (1863). 
The title of Godron’s thesis was “Des hybrides vegetaux, con- 
siderees au point de vue de leur fecondite et de la perpetuite ou 
non-perpetuite de leurs characteres.” His paper is devoted chief- 
ly to the solution of the question as to whether “hybrids repro- 
ducing by self-fertilization sometimes keep their characters in- 
variable during several generations, and whether they are able 
to become the types of constant races, or whether, on the contrary, 
they always return to the forms of one of their ancestors at the 
end of several generations, as recent observations seem to in- 
dicate.” In answer to this query, he says : “We have determined, 
upon hybrids of. Linar ia that the hybrid form may become very 
fertile, and that a certain number of individuals, from the second 
generation, return respectively to the two primitive types, when 
they grow in company with their parents, and this return move- 
ment manifests itself much more in the following generations.” 
Naudin' s conclusions. — The general conclusions of importance 
for his time, at which Naudin arrived, are as follows — in the 
language of the award committee of the Academy — and which are 
quoted in their own words to show the point of view of science at 
that time: “The first, and the most important of all, is that the 
singular beings which result from the cross- fertilization of two 
different types, far from being condemned to absolute sterility, 
are frequently endowed with the faculty of producing seeds 
capable of germination.” 
“The second consequence of major interest which proceeds from 
the numerous experiments in the same memoir is that fertile 
hybrids have a manifest tendency to return to the forms that pro- 
