260 
REVIEWS 
found plenty to do in the work to which it has set its hand; but the 
greater the progress the nearer comes the enquiry, “ Is not the work 
nearly finished? Surely by this time the distribution of plants within 
Great Britain must be all but fully known.” With regard to all but 
the modern segregates this is doubtless true, but against it we must 
set the curious fact that the number of novelties recorded year by 
year shows but little signs of falling off. Every botanist can bear 
witness that, however much he may have studied a large district, he 
can always find in it something new by stepping aside a yard or so 
from the ruts in which we are all apt to travel. We may therefore 
hope that, though the present rate of progress cannot be maintained, 
the Club may find work to do for many years. We find in this volume 
fresh localities for the latest born into the families of true British 
plants:— Selinum Carvifolia, Senecio spathuUfoUus, Fotainogeton Zizii, 
Agrostis nigra, and others, while the distribution of those longer known 
is extended even into unlooked-for quarters. 
One of the most noticeable features of the Report is the attempt 
made by its Editor to hold the balance equally between the views 
of extreme “lumpers” and “splitters.” When he receives from a 
member of the Club one of those intermediate forms which no botanist 
can fail to meet with, he records it as, what it is, an intermediate, 
instead of forcing upon it the name of the segregate to which ho thinks 
it is nearest. With regard to the grass first discovered in Warwickshire 
by our indefatigable contributor, Mr. J. E. Bagnall, Agrostis nigra of 
Withering, he quotes Professor Haeckel’s opinion, expressed with 
reference to another genus of Gramineas, that “ it is quite impossible 
to distinguish all distinguishable and perhaps hereditary forms as 
species,” unless, we may add, we are prepared to undertake an amount 
of labour which can at present be but dimly seen, but which, even as 
thus foreshadowed, is overwhelmingly great. As has been often said 
in these pages, there are many genera in which the process of evolution 
is at the present moment engaged in forming new species. The older 
botanists were ignorant that such is the case, and made the want one 
of the stock objections to the theory of evolution. But now the number 
of genera in which this manufacture is seen to be in progress is yearly 
increased, and when we have to do with one of these “ of the naming 
of new species (?) there is no end.” This is the true, but as yet hardly 
recognised explanation of the two botanical (and zoological) “schools.” 
Among “things not generally known” is the influence of fashion in 
science, which is nevertheless one of the most potent factors of its 
condition. It was once the fashion to look at broad distinctions 
mainly, and in so doing the multitude of really existing but minute 
differences was overlooked ; then the fashion grew of making the most 
of these, and now the pendulum must swing back again as is its wont. 
It is right to treat these intermediate forms as distinguishable at first 
till we have evidence to the contrary, but then to re-unite them. Thus 
will finally be solved that still unended controversy as to what 
constitutes a species. W. B. C. 
