THE PRIMROSE AND DARWINISM.
The Primrose and Darwinism. By a Field Naturalist. (Grant Richards. 6s. net.)—The anonymous "field naturalist" who has written this little book must be a very modest man. He believes that he has succeeded in showing that Darwin was an inaccurate observer, and that his long and painful experiments on the behaviour of plants were so inferior to what the " Field Naturalist" can see in the copses and hedgerows as to be absolutely mislead- ing as a test of truth. Yet he does not stoop to accept the crown of fame which this discovery should place upon his temples. Without going deeply into his arguments, which are suited for pages more technical than ours, we may simply observe that his criticism of Darwin's work on the fertilisation of plants strikes us as rather ingenious than convincing, and that much of it would carry greater weight if we knew the author's qualifications for accurate observation. He says, in speaking of Darwin's obser- vations on orchids :—" We have but little doubt, from the few species which we have had the opportunity of observing, that any naturalist who could watch them uninterruptedly in their natural habitats would find that Darwin came to as erroneous a conclusion about their absolutely needing (with one or two exceptions) insect agency for their fertilisation as he did about the absolute need of insect agency in the fertilisation of the heterostyled Primulaceae." It will be seen that this is rather a slender basis on which to found charges againet Darwin's accuracy : authority for authority, we prefer Darwin.
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