Notes. 
99 
number of these nuclear organs, we must regret this; all the more 
since his deductions have seriously influenced his interpretation of the 
processes in the oangium. 
His observations on this second point have evidently been numerous 
and careful; and indeed they afford a welcome confirmation to my 
own. But in his interpretation of the different appearances of nuclei 
in the same oangium, and in his assumption that the majority are 
practically digested by the cytoplasm, I cannot follow him. I must still 
hold that the divergence of character is due to the various number of 
nuclei that have fused, and to the varying stages of the fusion in the 
different nuclei as their number is reduced by this fusion. 
We next come to the question of fertilization by the antheridial 
tubes : of this alleged phenomenon I found no positive evidence 
whatever, but every indication to the contrary, as is fully stated in my 
complete paper. I have indeed found and figured (T. xxix, fig. 25) 
a young oospore of Saprolegnia with two nuclei which I ascribe to 
retarded fusion, as is so frequently the case in Achlya ; but in this 
case there was no antheridium present whatever, while many hundreds 
of oangia with attached antheridia and contained antheridial tubes did 
not supply a second case of a binucleate oospore in this genus. 
The general conclusions of the paper are largely based on the 
assumption that Weismannism is scientifically demonstrated ; but as 
I am not prepared to admit this as a common basis of argument, 
I shall abstain from discussing these conclusions. I must, however, 
point out that it is an anachronism in 1896 to make the following 
statement : * In the theory of heredity so brilliantly propounded by 
Weismann, the admixture of the substance which is the bearer [sic] 
of the hereditary tendencies during the sexual process is looked upon 
as the chief cause of variation in the higher organisms’ (p. 643). This 
was indeed the view of Weismann in 1891, till it was demonstrated 
in a theorem, rejected at first by his disciples but admitted as 
‘ a logically correct deduction ’ by himself, that the theory of 
‘Amphimixis’ as the chief cause of variation was in contradiction 
either with itself or with the facts of nature. Weismann having after 
this, to use his own words, ‘ gained a deeper insight into the problems 
concerned,’ published in the ‘Germ-Plasm’ (London, 1893) the fol- 
lowing statements duly italicized: — € Amphimixis . ... is not the 
primary cause of hereditary variation ’ (p. 414) : ‘ the cause of hereditary 
variation must lie deeper than this , it must be due to the direct effect cf 
H 2 
