Sep., 1890. 
weismann’s theory of germ-plasm. 
209 
symptoms, both of these being very weakly, and dying at an 
early age. 
An idea occurred to me a few nights ago on being 
awaked from my slumbers by an asthmatical old rooster. 
How could the habit of crowing in the middle of the night 
possibly have arisen by Natural Selection ? No conceivable 
purpose is served, so its development cannot have been aided 
by man, for it has been an annoyance ever since the time 
when Peter used bad language about it. 
The fault I find with Mr. Poulton’s diagram is that it 
gives one the idea that after the primary division of the ovum 
the whole of the germ-plasm is retained by one of the halves. 
He is certainly quite right in showing it so that it corresponds 
to his statement of the theory and also to Weismann’s ; but 
the latter implies in one argument that other cells besides 
those devoted to reproduction possess some of it. 
It had been suggested (by Strasburger) that Begonia 
leaves, when placed under suitable conditions, could send out 
roots and shoots from the mid-rib, and produce plans that 
were capable of propagating in the ordinary way, and he 
replied that there must have been some germ-plasm in the 
cells of the mid-rib, or such a thing could not occur. This 
case, and also the similar one of mosses that can reproduce 
themselves by any fragment of any portion of the plant, 
would tend to prove that there must be germ-plasm in every 
part of the organism. Any part of the living meristem can 
produce new cells, as is frequently seen in the callus that 
grows from the edges of wounds in trees, and subsequently 
covers them. In animals the new flesh that arises under like 
conditions, the production of a new socket to a limb that has 
been dislocated and not re-set, and the peculiar power of 
reproducing a lost limb possessed by reptiles and Crustacea, 
already referred to, are cases in point. In multiaxial plants, 
as each bud arises from the growing point, there also must 
the germ-plasm be divided, as it shows itself both in the 
blossoms produced by such buds and in the growing point, 
which must retain a portion to pass on to later buds. If, 
then, these dividing cells may be equally possessed of a quan¬ 
tity of germ-plasm in the case of the throwing off of a bud, 
and of the germinating Begonia leaf, then I can see no reason 
why germ-plasm should not be shared by every cell that 
arises beneath the growing point, no matter whether it goes 
to form somatic or reproductive tissue. 
Notwithstanding the highly hypothetical nature of this 
theory it is exceedingly attractive, and possesses some excel¬ 
lent qualities. It explains atavism or reversion, it throws 
light on the phenomenon of the extrusion of the polar 
