since they cannot be regarded as symmetrical and lateral appendages of the median portion of the episternal bone which is here absent, nothing remains but to acknowledge in them the rudimentary sternal extremities of a second pair of clavicles, that is to say, of the socalled coracoids. The part of the sternum to which they are attached is in complete accordance with this view. The structural arrangements which exist in Crocidura appear to me to be of importance in the determination of the several parts already described in the Mouse, and if these are somewhat different, it must be remembered that we are dealing with two very different classes of the animal kingdom.

It is perhaps reserved for later researches to acquire a better and more extended knowledge of those fragmentary portions of the skeleton which are homologous with similar parts in lower animals ; and by the discovery of transitional forms, to acquire positive information upon the various points which are only rendered highly probable by the observations I have here recorded.

L.-NOTE ON HYBRIDISM IN VEGETABLES. By C. Naudin, Member of the Institute of France.

[As coming from the most distinguished experimental fertilizer on the Continent, and one whose ever conscientious labours have been of very considerable service to science, and will be of greater value to future theorists, we gladly make room for the following communication.

It was transmitted, with the information, "that it forms a supplementary chapter to M. Naudin's New Memoir on Hybridism in Vegetables,' which obtained the prize offered by the French Academy for the best solution of certain questions respecting the important subject of hybridization. As, however, it was considered to have no very immediate bearing on the recent questions proposed, the Academy did not print it." Whatever may have been the motives which ruled the French Academy in rejecting this chapter, we need hardly point out to the readers of The Natural History Review, that its author is in error in supposing that his views would have presented any novelty to English Naturalists, even had they appeared before Mr. Darwin's work, or still less that they involve, as he imagines they do,

the Darwinian hypothesis. The speculation that all species are derivative is a very old one, and was accepted by many in England and on the Continent before the appearance of Mr. Darwin's work, as being at least as philosophical and certainly more rational than the only other speculation hitherto advanced, viz., that species were created separately and independently. What Mr. Darwin has done is: 1. To show that the operation of natural selection must eventually result in the coordination of the derivative individuals, into more or less definable groups which we call species, genera, orders, &c. 2. To demonstrate that such a process actually takes place in minor groups, both of the animal and vegetable kingdom. 3. To show how the main facts of classification, development, and geographical distribution, are all consonant with and explicable upon the hypothesis that organised beings are all derivative, and have been ruled by natural selection in everything relating to their development, whether as to grade of perfection, numbers, magnitude, or diffusion over the earth's surface. It is the application of this demonstrably proved law of natural selection together with the fact that the struggle for existence must lead to the extinction of the weaker races to the speculation of the derivative origin of species, that is the novel point which Mr. Darwin has brought out, and which raises the said speculation to the rank of a legitimate hypothesis; and it is the fact of the derivative origin of species being no longer a speculation, but a hypothesis (or, as some say a theory,) that has necessitated its careful consideration by every scientific biologist and its acceptance by many at once, and by more as time advances.

There is nothing in M. Naudin's communication that indicates his having advanced in his conclusions as to the "origin of species by variation" beyond the state in which that speculation was left by Lamarck in his own country, and by the "Vestiges of the Natural History of the Creation," in this. M. Naudin, however, seems to have failed to perceive the points of Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, and hence supposes that he had forestalled its author. His communication is, however, an excellent exposition of his scientific creed, and coming from so justly distinguished a naturalist we are sure that it will be persued with interest by all, and with profit by many who may be opposed to his conclusions.-Ed. N. H. R.]

The experience of more than twenty centuries has established the fact, which is of immense importance as regards human economy, that vegetables submitted to culture are modified in

various ways, and give rise to new forms, which acquire at length, either by artificial or natural selection, a certain degree of stability, and are even reproduced in many cases with the same fidelity as types originally specific. There is scarcely a single species, which has been cultivated from remote antiquity, which has remained perfectly uniform and which has not been divided into secondary forms sufficiently distinct from each other to be easily recognised by every common observer. Wheat, the vine, the olive tree, the date palm, cabbages, onions, kidney-beans, gourds, &c., offer examples which are known to every one. These secondary or derivative forms which render primitive species real groups analogous to our botanical genera, are properly speaking what are designated under the names of races and varieties, terms accepted by science, which applies them to forms slightly contrasted, but which have remained wild, and over which man has never exercised any modifying influence.

It may be objected indeed that these pretended derivative forms are merely true species occurring primitively in nature, exactly as we see them now, and that neither the processes of cultivation, nor the different circumstances of soil and climate through which man has caused them to pass, has modified them in the slightest degree. But this objection, in addition to its being extremely improbable, since none of these forms which may be counted by thousands occur in a wild state, does not hold against that other fact, that we see new forms arise in modern times, and that species of recent introduction, as the potato, Indian corn, the dahlia, the China-aster, and hundreds of other plants but lately introduced, offer the same phenomenon of variation from the typical form. There can therefore be no doubt of the inherent capability of natural species to be sub-divided into secondary forms, into varieties, or to speak more philosophically into species of an inferior dignity, which with time, when they are preserved free from impregnation with other sub-species of the same origin, acquire all the stability of character presented by old species.

Is this phenomenon then limited to species submitted to cultivation, and does it necessarily require the intervention of man to produce them? I do not think so; it seems to me on the contrary infinitely more probable, that it has taken place in nature on a much wider scale than in the narrow domain of our industry, where even at the present day, natural agents, such as soil, light, heat, atmospheric conditions, &c., are the principal agents. I regard then, 2 Q

N.H.R.-1865.

in accordance with most botanists, all those slight species classed under the names of races and varieties as forms derived from a primitive specific type, and having in consequence a common origin. I go further the best characterised species themselves are, in my opinion, so many secondary forms relatively to some more ancient type which actually comprised them all, as they themselves comprise all the varieties to which they give birth under our eyes, when we submit them to cultivation.

Whether they allow it or not, all botanical describers feel instinctively that the question of species is connected with that of origin, and that in declaring that this form is a species, and that a simple variety, they declare implicitly for a system determined with relation to their origin. But, two systems only are possible. Either species were created in the first instance such as they are now, and in the same portions of the globe which they still occupy, and in consequence without any mutual dependence, and without any other than a metaphorical relationship; or else they are united by the bond of a common origin, are really related to each other, and descend from common ancestors. The former system is the most ancient; it comes to us directly from the middle ages and is supported by Bible texts which, in my opinion, are falsely interpreted; it is cotemporary with and the complement as it were of that geological system which made the globe proceed from the hands of the Creator in the form which we now behold it, with the same continents, the same seas, the same watersheds, the same mountains, the same topography in a word, and in consequence, the same animals and vegetables. In this system all is primordial, and appears as it were suddenly, by the sole act of the Divine Will without antecedent phenomena, and without any evolution. In a word it is the system of the supernatural, received by many Theologians, as well Protestant as Catholic, and, it must be confessed, even by a certain number of men of science.

I am assuredly far from denying the Divine intervention in the great act of creation, any more than I deny it in the phenomena of the present world, where I see it unceasingly present. God does not testify his power less in working by agents, than in operating directly; in proceeding by the way of evolution, by a logical series of phenomena, than in proceeding by sudden gushes and by miracles. The formation of an embryo in a fecundated ovule, the development of this embryo into a feeble plant which bursts its integuments,

and finally its transformation into a great tree, which, in its turn, is adorned with flowers and reproduces its race, all these things are neither less marvellous, nor less incomprehensible, nor less divine than the creation of a world; they are, to speak truly, real creations since they give place to beings which had no previous existence. Nevertheless, since we see the phenomena succeeding each other, and following in a logical order it does not come into our mind that they are supernatural matters. What makes a miracle, is not its incomprehensibility, but its exceptionality, which places it apart from the regular chain of facts. Any fact which enters into any physical series, which has antecedents, I might almost say parents, in anterior phenomena, which, in a word, has a material cause and material consequences, is a natural fact-a fact amenable to science. But if the same logic, the same sequence of phenomena, the same evolution in things, has been the prelude of the appearance of organized beings on this globe, their creation enters purely and simply into the order of physical and natural phenomena, as certainly as the partial creations continued to the present day, which form the very life of these beings.

It does not follow from the circumstance that the creation of organized beings may be considered as a rigorously dependant series of phenomena, that the torch of life was lighted on this globe by the force of terrestrial nature. We would not willingly admit the spontaneous formation of the monad, and the observation of all time, which has never been seriously contradicted, shows that life, under whatever form it appears, is always and everywhere transmitted. This consideration forces me invincibly to think, that the first germ of all organization is strange to our planet, and that it has been imported, whence, when and how, it has pleased the Organizer of Worlds. If the extra-terrestrial influence of the sun is necessary for the mere maintenance of life upon the earth, how much more need was there for the concourse of some foreign agent to originate life.

One fact strikes me in the contemplation of the organized and living world which surrounds us, and of which we form a part; viz., that variable as are their forms, organized beings have strong analogies with each other. It is in virtue of these analogies, that their classification into kingdoms, classes, families, genera, and species becomes possible. Suppress these analogies, suppose as many moulds radically different as there are individualities in nature, and