26 
is on hand—such, for instance, as that of the Royal Society’s “ Evolu¬ 
tion Committee ”—it is absolutely impossible for the leading men 
engaged in it to test everything personally, and they must depend upon 
the accurate observations of a large number of collaborators. The 
need for care and accuracy in such cases cannot possibly be insisted 
upon too strongly ; supposed “ data” ought not to be handed in at all 
unless he who furnishes them feels confident that they can be relied 
upon ; neither has he any right to readjust them at all to suit any 
preconceived theory. I will venture to quote a short passage from an 
amusing, but in some respects very shrewd, paper, which was read in 
this room a few years ago by Mr. F. W. Frost.” He says: You 
remember the “Spiritualist” Dickens encountered in America, who 
informed him of some marvellous communications from the other 
world. One of great interest was a new rendering of an old proverb, 
“ A bird in the hand is worth two in the bosh.” “They meant bush,” 
said Dickens. After referring to his notes the other replied solemnly, 
“ It came to us ‘bosh.’ ” This kind of person should be sent into the 
field to collect facts. He can be absolutely trusted not to add any 
ideas of his own, nor will he try to make bosh plausible. Thus far 
Mr. Frost. It is to me not a little surprising to find so good a 
practical naturalist as Dr. Corbett, of Doncaster, severely criticising, 
or rather ridiculing this passage.! Of course, if Mr. Frost had said 
that there ought to be no naturalists ready to play the part of Dickens, 
and suggest possible errors of observation or the desirability of cor¬ 
roborative evidence, we might find something to quarrel with ; but I 
for one most heartily endorse the sentiment that faithfulness to the 
evidence of one’s own senses, however little one may understand the 
import of the fact observed, is the cardinal virtue in a field naturalist. 
Some of the older entomologists in our Society have been not a little 
gratified to notice among the papers and communications of our 
younger men unmistakable indications of a sharp faculty of observa¬ 
tion, which augurs well for the future of entomology in our midst. 
I should here like to call your attention to Mr. W. Bateson’s recent 
translation, published in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural 
Society, of a very valuable, but much-overlooked paper by Gregor 
Mendel, on “ Experiments in Plant Hybridisation,” which originally 
appeared so long ago as 1865 in the Abhandlunyen des naturforschendcn 
Vereines in Briinn, and which may have an important bearing on the 
statistics of heredity. As I have only just been reading the paper, it 
is fresh in my memory, and I wish I had the time and the ability to 
give you an intelligible summary of it. Although it is botanical, and 
the majority of our members are primarily entomological, it is of such 
a nature that it could not fail to be of interest to every lover of 
biological science, whatever be his special branch of study, and I 
should strongly recommend all who have the opportunity to read it 
for themselves. In order to briefly indicate Mendel’s line of enquiry, 
I may say that the species (or sub-species) selected for hybridisation 
were certain of the peas ( Bisum sativum, &c., Ac.), and that a careful 
and very laborious series of experiments was carried out, having 
* “ Entomology, Evolution and Romance: a pica for a new departure ” 
(Ent. Record, vii., pp. 308-312). 
f Ent, Record, viii., p. 30. 
