146 
PROCEEDINGS OP THE PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OP NATURAL SCIENCE. 
upper part of the whorl, or that nearest the spire. The typical 
form, where all the hands are present, is described as I.2.3.4.5., 
and those varieties which are destitute of bands as 0.0.0.0.0. Var 
cincta, which has only the third band, would be 0.0.3.0.0. Where 
two or more bauds are coalesced, as in var. coalita, the numbers 
corresponding to these are enclosed in brackets. Thus the fol¬ 
lowing combinations are represented in the Balgowan series:— 
11.2,3) (4.5); (1.2) (3.4.5.); 1. (2.3) 4.5 and (1.2.3.4.5). In the last 
of these it will be seen that all the bands are coalesced in one 
broad mass which covers the greater part of the whorl. 
The foregoing notes may serve to indicate the infinite amount 
of variation which is to be met with in this most variable of 
British snails. 
In conclusion. Mr Coates said that he should be glad to re¬ 
ceive any quantity of specimens of these or other Perthshire 
shells for the Museum. The localities where they had been 
found should be mentioned. The specimens might be sent to 
the Museum alive; but if the collector desired to prepare them, 
all that was required was to drop them into boiling water to 
kill the animal, which could then be extracted by a pin. Small 
shells, however, required no preparation. 
The following paper was read :— 
“ Evolution , and some things said regarding it.” By Rev. 
A. Milroy, D.D., Moneydie. 
Though this paper professes, by its heading, to treat 
of evolution, as well as of things said about it, yet it 
may be as well at the outset to state that it is mainly con¬ 
cerned with the latter. I deem it unnecessary to explain 
to the members of this Society the doctrine of evolution 
and the arguments by which it is supported ; and even if 
it were necessary, the attempt to compress a statement 
and vindication of the theory within the limits of the 
opening part of a short paper could produce only inade¬ 
quate and unsatisfactory results. A clear statement of 
the doctrine and an intelligent summary of the evidence 
on which it rests, as well as of the evidence which is yet 
lacking, would be a very interesting and profitable subject. 
I trust some of the younger members will take it up and 
give the Society the results of their investigations. The 
doctrine of evolution was not absolutely new when it was 
published in a systematic form by Darwin. It was known 
in metaphysics, before it appeared in natural science. 
Hegel, starting from pure idealism, threw out speculations 
which, carried on by others, resulted in a theory of evolu¬ 
tion. Coming from metaphysics to physics, we find that 
the theory was published by two men at the same time. 
On July 1st, 1858, Mr Charles Darwin gave a paper to the 
Linnean Society of London, stating the conclusions which 
had been at first suggested to him by the facts which came 
under his observation in South America while acting as 
naturalist on board H.M.S. Beagle, and had been con¬ 
firmed by subsequent extensive and prolonged investiga¬ 
tions. On the same day a paper was submitted to the 
same Society from Mr Alfred Russell Wallace, giving the 
conclusions at which he had arrived from observations 
made by him while exploring the Malay Archipelago. 
These two naturalists had been prosecuting their re¬ 
searches, independently of each other, in regions far 
asunder, and the conclusions at which they had arrived on 
the origin of species were, in the main, identical. In this 
way the formal doctrine of evolution was first published. 
There had been glimmerings of such a theory long before 
that time. Darwin himself gives us an interesting “his¬ 
torical sketch of the progress of opinion on the origin of 
species, previously to the publication of the first edition ” 
of his own book on the subject. From this sketch it clearly 
appears that the theory had been held and taught long be¬ 
fore it bad been promulgated by Darwin. Among the 
naturalists who held such a view we find the name of a 
Perthshire man, Mr Patrick Matthew, who, in his work 
on “ Naval Timber and Aboriculture,” published in 1831, 
(a reprint of which will be found in the first volume of the 
Scottish Naturalist ) gives the same views on the origin of 
species as Mr Darwin and Mr Wallace laid before the 
Linnean Society in 1858. The conclusions at which Dar¬ 
win had arrived, “ with a few facts in illustration,” were 
published in 1859 under the title of “The Origin of Species.” 
The idea itself was not original; it had been mooted before, 
but to Darwin belongs the merit of working it out—of col¬ 
lecting and arranging the evidence in support of it, of care¬ 
fully reading the varied records of nature, and showing how 
these records corroborated the theory, The immediate effect 
of the publication was to create almost a revolution in the 
study of natural science. It aroused, of course, bitter 
opposition, which has by no means died away. The con¬ 
test is still proceeding, but, generally speaking, the 
victories are gained by the evolutionists; one stronghold 
after another is stormed and taken, and their ranks are 
always augmented by defections from the opposite side. 
It would be impossible to give a better statement of the view 
than that which is given by Darwin himself in the closing 
sentences of his work :—“ It is interesting to contemplate 
a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, 
with birds singing in the bushes, with various insects 
flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp 
earth, and to reflect that these elaborately-constructed 
forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon 
each other in so complex a manner, have all been pro¬ 
duced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the 
largest sense, being growth with reproduction; inheritance 
which is almost implied by reproduction; variability from 
