QUERIES IN LOCAL TOPOGRAPHICAL BOTANY. 129 
gations of considerable extent, as to variety of matter and direction 
of enquiry, can be undertaken, even when the attention is confined 
to a small area. I have written with the conviction that so com- 
paratively limited a tract as that forming the counties of Devon 
and Cornwall supplies in its plants, birds, insects, climate, geology, 
&c, and their mutual relations, objects of the deepest interest for 
study, and sufficient matter for prolonged, diligent, and exact 
research. I have maintained that by local facts some of the most 
startling theories of the age may be supported, tested, or perhaps 
disproved ; and that whilst this is the case it is a subject for regret 
that there should be a tendency in the scientific literature of the 
present day to lead men to spend time in making visionary state- 
ments as to the aspects and work of Nature in the past, rather than 
in seeking after fuller knowledge of her operations in the present, 
grounded on undoubted facts, whence to draw inferences as to her 
earlier acts and phenomena. 
I have shown that further particulars are required before the 
distribution of certain plants in Devon and Cornwall can be stated 
with precision, and that questions of interest and importance would 
attach to records of their ranges, if sought out with exactness, and 
recorded with care; that such great questions as the differences 
between species and varieties, species competition, the respective 
influences of climate, lithology, and geology on plant distribution, 
may all have light thrown on them by the phenomena of even a 
limited tract, and may be kept in view by a student of its produc- 
tions in carrying out his work of observation. I have dwelt on 
the fact of the occurrence of hybridism in Epilobium, as well as 
its existence in other genera, and have consequently inferred that 
particulars respecting it may be gathered in this neighbourhood by 
those willing to seek after them. 
The tone of my remarks here and there in this paper may 
perhaps have already sufficed to show that whilst I am willing to 
accept certain views of natural phenomena adopted by advocates of 
the evolution theory, from my conviction of their interpretation of 
them being justified by facts, I yet consider that " not proven " 
must be written against the doctrine of the " Origin of Species by 
means of Natural Selection." 
