[Odlober, 
( 532 
NOTICES OF BOOKS, 
The Effects of Cross- and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable 
Kingdom. By Charles Darwin, F.R.S. London : John 
Murray. 
That this work is intended as a contribution to the body of 
cumulative evidence already collected by Mr. Darwin in support 
of his views on the origin of species need not be questioned. 
But consisting as it does not of generalisation or controversial 
matter, but of the records of careful experiments and observa- 
tions, it has a value quite independent of theories. Should 
hereafter the hypothesis of “ natural selection ” be superseded, 
should the dofftrine of Evolution in any shape be abandoned, the 
volume before us must still remain a highly important contri- 
bution to biological science. 
The author on the threshold of his enquiry points to the 
abundant evidence that flowers are constructed so as to be cross- 
fertilised, occasionally or habitually, by pollen from another 
flower, whether growing on the same or on a different plant. 
To ensure such cross-fertilisation a number of curious arrange- 
ments exist, which the author and other observers have elsewhere 
described, and to which he only therefore refers in passing. We 
will merely remind the reader that this purpose is in some cases 
secured by a separation of the sexes of flowers, whilst in others 
the pollen and the stigma of the same flower are not matured at 
the same time. Sometimes the impregnation of flowers by their 
own pollen is prevented, or at least impeded, by beautiful me- 
chanical contrivances. In one class the ovules “ absolutely 
refuse to be fertilised by pollen from the same plant, but can be 
fertilised by pollen from any other individual of the same 
species.” 
Mr. Darwin’s present concern is not with the means, but with 
the ends of cross-fertilisation. It would be “ simpler,” surely, 
for every plant to have been fecundated by its own pollen ; but 
finding this state of things in a number of cases so carefully 
guarded against, we are warranted alike on the principles of the 
Old and the New School of Natural History in supposing that 
we have before us no mere accident. The author was led to 
undertake the experiments hereinafter detailed by the following 
circumstance : — For the sake of determining certain points with 
respedt to inheritance, and without any thought of the effecffs of 
close inter-breeding, I raised close together two large beds of 
self-fertilised and crossed seedlings from the same plant of 
Linaria vulgaris. To my surprise the crossed plants, when 
