Читать книгу The Life and Letters of George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S - George John Romanes - Страница 7

Dunskaith: June 24.

Many thanks for your long and suggestive letter. The poisons also are most acceptable. I have waited before writing to try effect of the latter, but the weather has been so stormy that no jelly-fish could be got.

The most interesting observations I have made since writing before are the following. Unmutilated Sarsia in a dark room seek a beam of light thrown into the bell-jar containing them, and this as keenly as do moths. But when the so-called eye-specks are cut out, the animal no longer cares for light.

I have only come across two species of luminous Medusæ—both, I believe, as yet undescribed—and in these the light is emitted from the margin alone, and, with electrical stimulus, is strictly confined to the intra-polar regions, being strongest at the two poles.

There is no doubt at all about the muscular nature of the fibres we saw. In the larger kinds of Medusæ (the covered-eyed) these fibres are much coarser, and are clearly seen to be arranged in concentric bundles, having four or five fibres in each bundle. Alternating with these bundles, and about the same width as these, are strands of undifferentiated protoplasm. These strands are not spontaneously contractile, although their dimensions are altered by the contraction of the muscular branch on each of their sides. No part of the tissue is doubly refracting in the fresh state. Is there any way of treating it with a view of bringing out this property if latent, so to speak? The peculiarity is not due to the transparency of the tissue, for I find that the muscular fibre of the transparent osseous fish Leptocephalus is as doubly-refracting as could be wished. There are no signs of striæ, but Agassiz says that in some of the Mediterranean species striæ are well marked. But if both striated and unstriated fibres are elsewhere doubly-refracting, it does not, I suppose, much signify whether or not the muscles of Medusæ are striated—so far, I mean, as the peculiarity in question is concerned.

I wish you would say what you think about this peculiarity in relation to a subject that I have been working up. You no doubt remember that in——'s paper that we heard read, he said that the snail's heart had no nerves or ganglia, but nevertheless behaved like nervous tissue in responding to electrical stimulation. He hence concluded that in undifferentiated tissue of this kind, nerve and muscle were, so to speak, amalgamated. Now it was principally with the view of testing this idea about 'physiological continuity' that I tried the mode of spiral and other sections mentioned in my last letter. The result of these sections, it seems to me, is to preclude, on the one hand, the supposition that the muscular tissue of Medusæ is merely muscular (for no muscle would respond to local stimulus throughout its substance when so severely cut), and, on the other hand, the supposition of a nervous plexus (for this would require to be so very intricate, and the hypothesis of scattered cells is without microscopical evidence here or elsewhere). I think, therefore, that we are driven to conclude that the muscular tissue of Medusæ, though more differentiated into fibres than is the contractile tissue of the snail's heart, is, as much as the latter, an instance of 'physiological continuity.' (Whether or not the interfascicular protoplasmic substance before spoken of is the seat of this physiological continuity is here immaterial.) Dr. Foster fully agrees with me in this deduction from my experiments, and is very pleased about the latter, thus affording additional support to his views. But what I want to ask you is, supposing the interfascicular substance to have no share in conducting stimulus (and I have no evidence of its presence in Sarsia), and hence that the properties of nerve and muscle are united in the contractile fibres of Medusæ—supposing this, do you think that the peculiarity you observed in the molecular conformation of this tissue, considered as muscular, is likely to have anything to do with this peculiarity in its function?

I know you do not like theory, so I shall return to fact. There can be no doubt whatever that the seat of spontaneity is as much localised in the margin as the sensibility to stimulus is diffused throughout the bell. There must, therefore, be some structural difference in the tissue here to correspond to this great functional difference. Agassiz is very positive in describing a chain of cells running round the inner part of the marginal canal. Now, although I sometimes see a thin cord-like appearance here, I should not dare to say it was nervous. Gold certainly stains it, but it also stains many other parts of the tissue, and until I can see cells here I cannot be sure about a visible nervous cord. The cord I do see may be the wall of the marginal canal. I intend to persevere, however, trying your suggestions, also osmic acid.

I can get no indications of electrical disturbance during contraction in the way you suggest—at least not with Sarsia; but I intend to try with some of the larger Medusæ.

Some apparatus is coming from Cambridge to enable me to test for electrotonus and Pflüger's law. I shall apply it to the luminous Medusæ also, whose light, I forgot to say, is seen under the microscope in the dark to proceed not only from the margin alone, but from that particular part of the margin where Agassiz describes his chain of nervous cells.

Geo. J. Romanes.

From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes.

Down, Beckenham, Kent: July 18, 1875.

I have been much interested by your letter, and am truly delighted at the prospect of success. Such energy as yours is almost sure to command victory. The world will be much more influenced by experiments on animals than on plants. But in any case I think a large number of successful results will be necessary to convince physiologists. It is rash to be sanguine, but it will be splendid if you succeed. My object in writing has been to say that it has only just occurred to me that I have not sent you a copy of my 'Insectivorous Plants;' if you would care to have a copy, and do not possess one, send me a postcard, and one shall be sent. If I do not hear, I shall understand.

Yours very sincerely,

Ch. Darwin.

Dunskaith, Nigg P.O., Ross-shire, N.B.: July 20, 1875.

My dear Mr. Darwin—Your letter arrived just in time to prevent my sending an order to my bookseller for 'Insectivorous Plants,' for, of course, it is needless to say that I shall highly value a copy from yourself. At first I intended to wait until I should have more time to enjoy the work, but a passage in this week's 'Nature' determined me to get a copy at once. This passage was one about reflex action, and I am very anxious to see what you say about this, because in a paper I have prepared for the 'B.A.' on Medusæ I have had occasion to insist upon the occurrence of reflex action in the case of these, notwithstanding the absence of any distinguishable system of afferent and efferent nerves. But as physiologists have been so long accustomed to associate the phenomena of reflex action with some such distinguishable system, I was afraid that they might think me rather audacious in propounding the doctrine, that there is such a thing as reflex action without well-defined structural channels for it to occur in. But if you have found something of the same sort in plants, of course I shall be very glad to have your authority to quote. And I think it follows deductively from the general theory of evolution, that reflex action ought to be present before the lines in which it flows are sufficiently differentiated to become distinguishable as nerves.

I am very glad that you are pleased with my progress so far.

From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes.

Down, Beckenham, Kent: Sept. 24.

I shall be very glad to propose you for Linnean Soc., as I have just done for my son Francis. There is no doubt about your election. I have written for blank form. Please let me have your title, B.A. or M.A., and title of any book or papers, to which I could add 'various contributions to "Nature."' Also shall I say 'attached to Physiology and Zoology'? When I have signed whole, shall I send a paper to Hooker and others at Kew; or do you wish it sent to some one else for signature? Three signatures are required. The paper will have to be read twice or thrice when Soc. meets in November. But you could get books out of library or out of that of Royal Soc. by my signature or that of any other member.

I am terribly sorry about the onions, as I expected great things from them, the seeds coming, I believe, always true. As tubers of potatoes graft so well, would it not be good to try other tubers as of dahlias and other plants? I have been re-writing a large portion of the chapter on Pangenesis, and it has been awfully hard work. I will, of course, send you a copy when the work is printed. How I do hope that your fowls will survive! F. Galton was here for a few hours yesterday; I see that he is much less sceptical about Pangenesis than he was.

Dunskaith, Nigg, Ross-shire, N.B., Sept. 29, 1875.

My dear Mr. Darwin—Many thanks for your kind letter. I am an M.A. and a fellow of the Philosophical Society of Cambridge, but otherwise I am nothing, nor have I any publication worth alluding to. I suppose, however, this will not matter if I am proposed by yourself, Dr. Hooker, and Mr. Dyer. I think there would be no harm in saying 'attached to Physiology and Zoology.' I may read a paper before the Linnean next November on some new species of Medusæ, but I think it is better not to allude to any contributions in advance.

Your letter about Pangenesis made me long for success more even than does the biological importance of the problem.[8] Yesterday I dug up all my potatoes. Some of the produce looked suspicious, but more than this I should not dare to say. By this post I send you a box containing some of the best specimens, thinking you may like to see them. The lots marked A and B are sent for comparison with the others, being the kinds I grafted together. If you think it worth while to have the eyes of any of the other lots planted, you might either do so yourself or send them back to me. Lot C is the queerest, and to my perhaps too partial eye looks very like a mixture. In the case of this graft the seed potato was rotten when dug up yesterday, and this may account for the small size of the tubers sent.

I did try dahlias and peonies, but in the former the 'finger and toe' shape of the tubers, with the eyes situated in the worst parts for cutting out clearly, prevented me from getting adhesion in any one case. With the peonies I was too late in beginning. It was also too late in the year when I began Pangenesis to try the spring flowers, but I hope to do so extensively this winter. Next year I shall try grafting beets and mangolds by cutting the young white root into a square shape and placing four red roots all round. In this way the white one will have a maximum surface exposed to the influence of the red ones. I shall also try grafting the crown of the red in the root of the white variety, and vice versâ. I have already done this very successfully with carrots—making a little hole in the top of the root, and fitting in the crown like a cork in a bottle.

I shall look forward with great interest to the appearance of the new edition of the 'Variation.' I only wish I had begun Pangenesis a year earlier, when perhaps by this time the graft-hybrid question might have been settled. Perhaps, however, it is as well to have this question once more presented in its a priori form, for if it can soon afterwards be proved that a graft hybrid is possible, the theoretical importance of the fact may be more generally appreciated.

A day or two ago I saw on a farm near this a beautiful specimen of striping on a horse. The animal is a dark dun cob, with a very divided shoulder stripe coming off from the spinal one on either side. Each shoulder stripe then divides into three prongs, and each prong ends in a sharp point. All the legs are black as far as the knees (carpi and tarsi), and above the black part for a considerable distance all four legs are deeply marked with numerous stripes. I can get no history of parentage. If you would like a drawing I can send one, but perhaps you have already as many cases as you want in the 'Variation.'

Very sincerely and most respectfully yours,

Geo. J. Romanes.

To Professor E. Schäfer.

Dunskaith: Sept. 1875.

My dear Schäfer—I have to apologise for having left your last letter so long unanswered, but there has really been nothing going on here to make it worth while writing.

I gave my careful consideration to all you said about publishing, and at one time nearly decided to wait another year. But eventually I sent in the paper.[9] It seems to me that the histology can very well wait for future treatment—that its absence is not sufficient justification for withholding the results I have already observed. These results, after all, are the most important; for they prove that some structural modification there must be; whether or not this modification is visible is of subordinate interest. Besides, I do not, of course, intend to abandon the microscopical part of the subject altogether. In my view, inquiry into function in this case must certainly always precede inquiry into structure; for although, when all the work shall have been collected into one monograph, the histology must occupy the first place in order of presentation, very little way could have been made by following this order of investigation.

I also had to reflect, that if I postponed publication, it would be impossible to expect the R.S. to publish the results in extenso—i.e., I should have to bring out the work through some other medium.

And in addition to all this, there came a letter from Foster preaching high morality about it being the duty of all scientific workers to give their results to others as soon as possible.

As I said before, I thank you very much for the consideration and advice you have given, but I know that you would not like me to feel that the expression of your opinion in a matter with which you are not so fully acquainted as myself should lay me under any obligation to be led by it, after mature consideration seemed to show that the best course for me to follow was the one which I took.

Hoping soon to see you, I remain, very sincerely yours,

Geo. J. Romanes.

P.S.—I forgot to say that I acted upon your suggestion about the Linnean, and have been proposed by Darwin, Hooker, and Huxley.

From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes.

Down, Beckenham, Kent: July 12, 1875.

I am correcting a second edition of 'Var. under Dom.,' and find that I must do it pretty fully. Therefore I give a short abstract of potato graft hybrids, and I want to know whether I did not send you a reference about beet. Did you look to this, and can you tell me anything about it? I hope with all my heart that you are getting on pretty well with your experiments; I have been led to think a good deal on the subject, and am convinced of its high importance, though it will take years of hammering before physiologists will admit that the sexual organs only collect the generative elements.

The edition will be published in November, and then you will see all that I have collected, but I believe that you saw all the more important cases. The case of vine in 'Gardeners' Chronicle' which I sent you I think may only be a bud-variation, not due to grafting.

I have heard indirectly of your splendid success with nerves of Medusæ. We have been at Abinger Hall for a month for rest which I much required, and I saw there the cut-leaved vine, which seems splendid for graft hybridisation.

Yours very sincerely,

Ch. Darwin.

To C. Darwin, Esq.

Dunskaith: July 14, 1875.

I was very glad to receive your letter, having been previously undecided whether to write and let you know how I am getting on, or to wait until I got a veritable hybrid.

In one of your letters you advised me to look up the 'beet' case, but I could nowhere find any references to it. Dr. Hooker told me that although he could not then remember the man's name, he remembered that the experimenter did not save the seed, but dug up his roots for exhibition. I forget whether it was Dr. Masters, Bentham, or Mr. Dyer who told me that the experiment had been performed in Ireland, although they could not remember by whom. But if the experimenter did not save the seed, the mere fact of his sticking two roots together would have no bearing on Pangenesis, and so I did not take any trouble to find out who the experimenter was.

As you have heard about the Medusæ, I fear you will infer that they must have diverted my attention from Pangenesis; but although it is true that they have consumed a great deal of time and energy, I have done my best to keep Pangenesis in the foreground.

The proximate success of my grafting is all that I can desire, although, of course, it is as yet too early in the year to know what the ultimate success will be. I mean that, although I cannot yet tell whether the tissue of one variety is affecting that of the other, I have obtained intimate adhesion in the great majority of experiments. Potatoes, however, are an exception, for at first I began with a method which I thought very cunning, and which I still think would have been successful but for one little oversight. The method was to punch out the eyes with an electroplated cork-borer, and replace them in a flat-bottomed hole of a slightly smaller size made with another instrument in the other tuber. The fit, of course, was always perfect; but what I went wrong in was not having the cork-borers made of the best steel; for after I got about one hundred potatoes planted out, I found that the inserted plugs did not adhere. I therefore tried some sections with an exceedingly sharp knife that surgeons use for amputating, and the surfaces cut with this always adhered under pressure. The knife, however, must be set up in a guide, in order to get the surfaces perfectly flat. Next year I shall get cork-borers made of the same steel as this knife is made of, and then hope to turn out graft-hybrids by the score. Even this year, however, a great many of my potatoes are coming up, so I hope that some of the eyes may have struck. I think it is desirable to get some easy way of experimenting with potatoes (such as the cork-boring plan), and one independent of delicacy in manipulation, for then everybody could verify the results for himself, and not, as now, look with suspicion upon the success of other people.

With beans I get very good adhesion of the young shoots, but the parts which grow after the operation always continue separate. In some cases I am trying a succession of operations as the plant grows.

With beetroots and mangold-wurzel of all varieties, adhesion is certain to occur with my method of getting up great pressure by allowing the plants to grow for a few days inside the binding. I have therefore made grafts of all ages, beginning with roots only an inch or two long and as thin as threads.

The other vegetables also are doing well, but with flowers I have had no success. The vine-cuttings were too young to do anything with this year, but I hear from my cousin, who has charge of them, that they are doing well. They certainly have very extraordinary leaves.

This year I never expected to be more than one in which to gain experience, for embryo grafting, as it has never been tried by anybody, cannot be learned about except by experiments. But as I am a young man yet, and hope to do a good deal of 'hammering,' I shall not let Pangenesis alone until I feel quite sure that it does not admit of being any further driven home by experimental work; and even if I never get positive results, I shall always continue to believe in the theory.

I am very sorry to hear that you 'much needed rest,' and do earnestly hope that you will not work too hard over the new edition of one of the most laborious treatises in our language—a treatise to which we always refer for every kind of information that we cannot find anywhere else.

Dunskaith: November 7.

I have to-day sent you a beautifully successful graft. It is of a red and white carrot, each bisected longitudinally, and two of the opposite halves joined. You will see that the union is very intimate, and that the originally red half has become wholly white. The graft was made about three months ago, at which time the carrots were very small, but the colours very decided. I think, therefore, that unless red carrots ever turn into white ones—which, I suppose, is absurd—the specimen I send is a graft-hybrid so far as the parts in contact are concerned. It will be of great importance, as you observed in your last letter, in a case like this, to see if the other parts are affected—i.e. to get the plant to seed if possible. This, I suppose, can only be done at this late season with so young a plant by putting it in a greenhouse. Perhaps, therefore, you might pot it, as soon as it arrives, and keep it till I go up. If you do not care, to take charge of it altogether, I can then get a home for it somewhere in the South. It will not require a deep pot, for I see that I have cut through the end of one of the roots. It would be as well, before potting, to cut off the end of the other root also, so that the one half may not grow longer than the other, and thus perhaps assert an undue amount of influence during the subsequent history of the hybrid. If the plant when you get it, or after potting, shows signs of drooping, I should suggest clipping off the older leaves to check evaporation: having found this a good plan with beets, &c.

In the same box with the hybrid there is another carrot. This is for comparison, it having been from the same seed and grafted (upon the crown) at the same time as the originally red half of the hybrid.

I am doubtful about the potatoes I sent. On looking over a number of 'red flukes,' I find some here and there are mottled. At any rate, I shall try other varieties next year, and not say anything about this doubtful case.

I forgot to say that the hybrid carrot is the only specimen of longitudinal grafting which I tried with carrots, having been somewhat disheartened with this method by the persistent way in which beets and mangolds refuse to blend when grafted longitudinally. There have thus been no failures with carrots grafted in this way.

If it is not too late, I may suggest that the passage in the 'Variation' about the deformity of the sternum in poultry had better be modified. I have this year tried some experiments upon Brahma chickens, and find that the deformity in question is caused by lazy habits of roosting—the constantly recurring pressure of the roost upon the cartilaginous sternum causing it to yield at the place where the pressure is exerted. The experiments consisted merely in confining some of a brood of young chickens in a place without any roost, and allowing the others to go about with all the March chickens. The former lot have the sternum quite straight, and the latter lot have it deeply notched.

I write to thank you for the copy of the new edition of the 'Variation' which I received a few days ago. I am very glad to see that you have thought my views about rudimentary organs worth a place, and that you speak so well of them.

The chapter on Pangenesis is admirable. The case is so strong, that it makes me more anxious than ever to get positive results in this year's experiments. I mean there seems less doubt than ever that such results must be obtainable if one hammers long enough. I did not know that there were so many cases of graft-hybridisation in potatoes. Perhaps it will be better this year to give one's main energies to other vegetables.

I find that a German, Dr. Eimer, is on the scent of the jelly-fish, but he does not seem to have done much work as yet. It is arranged that I am to have a Friday evening at the Institution soon after Easter, to tell the people about my own work.

From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes.

6 Queen Anne Street: April 29, 1876.

I must have the pleasure of saying that I have just heard that your lecture was a splendid success in all ways. I further hear that you were as cool as the Arctic regions. It is evident that there is no occasion for you to feel your pulse under the circumstances which we discussed.

Yours very sincerely,

Ch. Darwin.

To C. Darwin, Esq.

I write to thank you for the slip about graft hybrids, and to say that as yet I have obtained no results myself. This place is too far north to admit of the seeds ripening properly after the plants have been thrown back several weeks by the operation. This applies especially to onions, so next year—the neck of Medusæ having now been broken—I intend to wait in London till all the grafting and planting out is finished. I do not think you will regret my not having followed such a course this year when you come to read the paper I am now writing. I never did such a successful four months' work, and if as many years suffice to answer all the burning questions that are raised by it, I think they will require to be years well spent.

And this makes me remember that I have to apologise for the inordinate time I have kept your copy of Professor Häckel's essay on Perigenesis. Since you sent it I have scarcely had any time for reading, and as you said there was no hurry about returning it, I have let it stand over till this paper is off my hands.

Lankester seems to have doubled up Slade in fine style. I suppose the latter has always trusted to his customers not liking to resort to violent methods. His defence in the 'Times' about the locked slates was unusually weak. 'Once a thief always a thief' applies, I suppose, to his case; but it is hard to understand how Wallace could not have seen him inverting the table on his head. In this we have another of those perplexing contradictions with which the whole subject appears to be teeming. I do hope next winter to settle for myself the simple issue between Ghost versus Goose.

Very sincerely and most respectfully yours,

Geo. J. Romanes.

To C. Darwin, Esq.

18 Cornwall Terrace.

Professor Häckel's paper on the Medusæ is called 'Beitrag zur Naturgeschichte der Hydromedusen' (Leipzig, 1865). Professor Huxley has lent me his copy, but says he wants it returned in a week or two. I ought certainly to have the work by me next summer, so I thought that if you happen to have it and can spare it till next autumn, I need not send to Germany for it, remembering what you said when I last saw you. I should also much like to see the other paper of Häckel's about cutting up the ova of Medusæ.

I have an idea that you are afraid I am neglecting Pangenesis for Medusæ. If so, I should like to assure you that such is not the case. Last year I gave more time to the former than to the latter inquiry; and although the results proved very disproportionate, this was only due to the fact that the one line of work was more difficult than the other. However, I always expected that the first year would require to be spent in breaking up the ground, and I am quite satisfied with the experience which this work has brought me. I confess, however, that but for personal reasons I should have postponed Pangenesis and worked the Medusæ right through in one year. There is a glitter about immediate results which is very alluring.

From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes.

I will send the books off by railway on Monday or Tuesday. You may keep that on Medusæ until I ask for it, which will probably be never. That on Siphonophora I should like to have back at some future time.

So far from thinking that you have neglected Pangenesis, I have been astonished and pleased that your splendid work on the jelly-fishes did not make you throw every other subject to the dogs. Even if your experiments turn out a failure, I believe that there will be some compensation in the skill you will have acquired.

P.S.—I have been having more correspondence with Galton about Pangenesis, and my confusion is more confounded with respect to the points in which he differs from me.

About this time Mr. Romanes made the acquaintance of Mr. Herbert Spencer and also that of Mr. G. H. Lewes, and of the wonderful woman known to the outer world as George Eliot, and to a small circle of friends as Mrs. Lewes.

Mr. Romanes was one of the favoured few who were allowed to join the charmed circle at the Priory on Sunday afternoons. He enjoyed the few talks he had with George Eliot, and, amongst other reminiscences, he told a characteristic story of Lewes. One afternoon, when there were very few people at the Priory, the conversation drifted on to the Bible, and George Eliot and Mr. Romanes began a discussion on the merits of the two translations of the Psalms best known to English people—the Bible and the Prayer Book version. They 'quoted' at each other for a short time, and then Lewes, who had not his Bible at his finger ends to the extent the other two had, exclaimed impatiently, 'Come, we've had enough of this; we might as well be in a Sunday school.' Both George Eliot and Mr. Romanes, by the way, preferred the Bible version.

In one of the letters to Mr. Darwin, Mr. Romanes alludes to the question of spiritualism, and his own determination to investigate the question so far as in him lay for himself.

He worked a good deal at spiritualism for a year or two, and he never could assure himself that there was absolutely nothing in spiritualism, no unknown phenomena underlying the mass of fraud, and trickery, and vulgarity which have surrounded the so-called manifestations.

He was always willing to investigate such subjects as hypnotism, thought reading, &c., and in 1880 he wrote an article for the September number of the 'Nineteenth Century.' in which he pleads for a candid and unprejudiced investigation of the facts. The article was a review of Heidenhain's "Der sogenannte thierische Magnetismus."

The work on Pangenesis and on Medusæ went on through 1876, and some letters to and from Mr. Darwin are here inserted.

From C. Darwin, Esq., to G. J. Romanes.

Dear Romanes.—As you are interested in Pangenesis, and will some day, I hope, convert an 'airy nothing' into a substantial theory, therefore I send by this post an essay by Häckel, attacking 'Pan.,' and substituting a molecular hypothesis. If I understand his views rightly, he would say that with a bird which strengthened its wings by use, the formative protoplasm of the strengthened parts becomes changed, and its molecular vibrations consequently changed, and that their vibrations are transmitted throughout the whole frame of the bird. How he explains reversion to a remote ancestor I know not. Perhaps I have misunderstood him, though I have skimmed the whole with some care. He lays much stress on inheritance being a form of unconscious memory, but how far this is part of his molecular vibration I do not understand. His views make nothing clearer to me, but this may be my fault. No one, I presume, would doubt about molecular movements of some kind. His essay is clever and striking. If you read it (but you must not on my account), I should much like to hear your judgment, and you can return it at any time.

We have come here for rest for me, which I much needed, and shall remain here for about ten days more, and then home to work, which is my sole pleasure in life. I hope your splendid Medusæ work and your experiments on Pan. are going on well. I heard from my son Frank yesterday that he was feverish with a cold, and could not dine with the Physiologists, which I am very sorry for, as I should have heard what they think about the new Bill.[10] I see that you are one of the secretaries to this young society. I was very much gratified by the wholly unexpected honour of being elected one of the hon. members. This mark of sympathy has pleased me to a very high degree.

Believe me, yours very sincerely,

Ch. Darwin.

Häckel gives reference to a paper on Pan. of which I have never heard.

I fear that you will have difficulty in reading my scrawl.

Do you know who are the other hon. members of your Society?

From G. J. Romanes to C. Darwin.

Dunskaith, Nigg, Ross-shire, N.B.: June 1, 1876.

Many thanks for your long and kind letter. Also for the accompanying essay. It seems to me, from your epitome of the latter, that if Pangenesis is 'airy,' Perigenesis must be almost vacuous. However, I anticipate much pleasure in reading the work, for anything by Häckel on such a subject cannot fail to be interesting.

I am sorry to hear that you 'much needed rest,' and also about Frank. I had hoped, too, that you would have mentioned Mrs. Litchfield.

Having been away from London for several weeks, I cannot say anything about the feeling with regard to the Bill. Sanderson and Foster think it 'stringent,' and so I suppose will all the Physiologists. The former wants me to write articles in the 'Fortnightly,' 'to make people take more sensible views on vivisection:' but I cannot see that it would be of any use. The heat of battle is not the time for us to expect fanatics to listen to 'sense.' Do you not think so?

I am sure the Physiological Society will be very pleased that you like being an hon. member, for it was on your account that honorary membership was instituted. At the committee meeting which was called to frame the constitution of the Society, the chairman (Dr. Foster) ejaculated with reference to you—'Let us pile on him all the honour we possibly can,' a sentiment which was heartily enough responded to by all present; but when it came to considering what form the expression of it was to take, it was found that a nascent society could do nothing further than make honorary members. Accordingly you were made an hon. member all by yourself; but later on it was thought, on the one hand, that you might feel lonely, and on the other that in a Physiological Society the most suitable companion for you was Dr. Sharpey.

Perhaps a 'secretary' ought not to be giving all the details about committee meetings, but if not, I know you will take it in confidence. It seems to me that you never fully realise the height of your pedestal, so that I am glad of any little opportunity of this kind to show you the angle at which the upturned faces are inclined. I am glad, too, to see from the inscription in Häckel's essay, that he is still doing his best to show that in Germany this angle is fast being lost in horizontality.

As the spring was so backward, the plants at Kew were too small to graft before I had to leave for the Medusæ. But this does not much matter, as I had a lot of vegetables planted down here also, which are doing well. Pangenesis I always expected would require a good deal of patience, and one year's work on such a subject only counts for apprenticeship. If, by the time I am a skilled workman, I am not able to send anything to the international exhibitions, I shall not envy any one else who may resolve to enter the same trade.

I am working hard at the jelly-fish just now, and have succeeded in extracting several new confessions. The nerve-plexus theory, in particular, is coming out with greater clearness. The new poisons, too, are giving very interesting results. I suppose you do not happen to know where I could get any snake poison. The 'Phil. Trans.' seem very long in coming out. I have not yet got the proofs of my paper.

June 6, 1877.

I am very glad you sent me the extract from Lamarck, for I had just been to the R.S., hunting up several of the older authors to see whether any mention had been made of the theory before Spencer wrote.

While at Down I forgot my speculations about inter-crossing, and, therefore, although I do not think they are much worth, I send you a copy of my notes. The ideas are not clearly put—having been jotted down a few years ago merely to preserve them—but no doubt you will be able to understand them. Do not trouble to return the MS.

I had intended to ask you while at Down if you happen to know whether stinging nettles are endemic plants in South America. The reason I should like to know is, that last year it occurred to me that the stinging property probably has reference to some widely distributed class of animals, and being told—rightly or wrongly, I do not know—that ruminants do not object to them, I tried whether my tame rabbits would eat freshly plucked nettles. I found they would not do so even when very hungry, but in the same out-house with the rabbits there were confined a number of guinea-pigs, and these always set upon the nettles with great avidity. Their noses were tremendously stung, however, so that between every few nibbles they had to stop and scratch vigorously. After this process had been gone through several times, the guinea-pig would generally become furious, and thinking apparently that its pain must have had some more obvious cause than the nettles, would fall upon its nearest neighbour at the feast, when a guinea-pig fight would ensue. I have seldom seen a more amusing spectacle than twenty or thirty of these animals closely packed round a bunch of nettles, a third part or so eating with apparent relish, another third scratching their noses, and the remaining third fighting with one another. But what I want to ask you is this. Does it not seem that the marked difference in the behaviour of the rabbits and the guinea-pigs points to inherited experience on the part of the former which is absent in the case of the latter? If nettles are not endemic in South America, this inference would seem almost irresistible. Dr. Hooker tells me nettles grow there now, but he does not know whether they did so before America was visited by Europeans. Possibly there might be some way of ascertaining.

I have now made a number of grafts at Kew. In about a month, I should think, one could see which are coming up as single and which as double sprouts. If, therefore, Frank is going to work in the laboratory in July, he might perhaps look over the bed (which is just outside the door), and reject the double-stalked specimens. I could trust him to do this better than any one at Kew, and if the useless specimens were rejected, there would afterwards be much less trouble in protecting the valuable ones. But do not suggest it unless you think it would be quite agreeable to him. If he is in town within the next fortnight, I wish he would look me up.

June 16.

I have deferred answering your letter until having had a talk with Mr. Galton about rudimentary organs. He thinks with me that if the normal size of a useful organ is maintained in a species, when natural selection is removed, the average size will tend to become progressively reduced by inter-crossing, and this down to whatever extent economy of growth remains operative in placing a premium on variations below the average at any given stage in the history of reduction.

I think I thoroughly well know your views about natural selection. In writing the manuscript note, so far as I remember, I had in view the possibility which Huxley somewhere advocates, that nature may sometimes make a considerable leap by selecting from single variations. But it was not because of this point that I sent you the note; it was with reference to the possibility of natural selection acting on organic types as distinguished from individuals—a possibility which you once told me did not seem at all clear, although Wallace maintained it in conversation.

I do not myself think that Allen[11] made out his points, although I do think that he has made an effort in the right direction. It seems to me that his fundamental principle has probably much truth in it, viz. that æsthetic pleasure in its last analysis is an effect of normal or not excessive stimulation.

Very sincerely and most respectfully yours,

Geo. J. Romanes.

From C. Darwin, Esq.

Down, Beckenham, Kent: August 9.

My dear Romanes—I have read your two articles in 'Nature,' and nothing can be clearer or more interesting, though I had gathered your conclusions clearly from your other papers. It seems to me that unless you can show that your muslin (in your simile) is rather coarse, the transmission may be considered as passing in any direction from cell or unit of structure to cell or unit; and in this case the transmission would be as in Dionæa, but more easily effected in certain lines or directions than in others. It is splendid work, and I hope you are getting on well in all respects. The Mr. Lawless to whom you refer is the Hon. Miss Lawless, as I know, for she sent me a very good manuscript about the fertilisation of plants, which I have recommended her to send to 'Nature.'

As for myself, Frank and I have been working like slaves on the bloom on plants, with very poor success; as usual, almost everything goes differently from what I had anticipated. But I have been absolutely delighted at two things: Cohn, of Breslau, has seen all the phenomena described by Frank in Dipsacus, and thinks it a very remarkable discovery, and is going to work with all reagents on the filaments as Frank did, but no doubt he will know much better how to do it. He will not pronounce whether the filaments are some colloid substance or living protoplasm; I think he rather leans to latter, and he quite sees that Frank does not pronounce dogmatically on the question.

The second point which delighted me, seeing that half of the botanists throughout Europe have published that the digestion of meat by plants is of no use to them—(a mere pathological phenomenon as one man says!)—is that Frank has been feeding under exactly similar conditions a large number of plants of Drosera, and the effect is wonderful. On the fed side the leaves are much larger, differently coloured, and more numerous—flower stalks taller and more numerous, and, I believe, far more seed-capsules, but these not yet counted. It is particularly interesting that the leaves fed on meat contain very many more starch granules (no doubt owing to more protoplasm being first formed), so that sections stained with iodine of fed and unfed leaves are to the naked eye of very different colour.

There, I have boasted to my heart's content; and do you do the same, and tell me what you have been doing.

Yours very sincerely,

Ch. Darwin.

From G. J. Romanes.

Dunskaith, Ross-shire: August 11, 1877.

I was very pleased to get your long and genial letter, which I will answer seriatim.

The 'muslin' in the hypothetical plexus seems to be very coarse in some specimens and finer in others—the young and active individuals enduring severer forms of section than the old. And in exploring by graduated stimuli, areas of different degrees of excitability may be mapped out, and these areas are pretty large, averaging about the size of one's finger-nails. I am rather inclined to think that these areas are determined by the course of well-differentiated nerve-tracts, while the less-differentiated ones are probably more like muslin in their mesh. But the only reason why I resort to the supposition of nerve-tracts at all is because of the sudden blocking of contractile waves by section, and the fact that stimulus (tentacular) waves very often continue to pass after the contractile ones have been thus blocked.

I am sorry I made the ungallant mistake about Miss Lawless, but I had no means of knowing. If I had known I should not have written the letter, because I am almost sure the movements of the Medusa were accidental, and my pointing out this source of error may be discouraging to a lady observer.

I remember thinking you were too diffident about the bloom, but I suppose that is the advantage of experience; it keeps one from forming too high hopes at the first.

The rest of your letter contains glorious news. Cohn, I suppose, is about the best man in Europe to take up the subject, and although I cannot conceive what else he can do than Frank has done already, it is no doubt most desirable that his opinion should be formed by working at the problems himself.

The other item about the effects of feeding Drosera is really most important, and in particular about the starch. I have heard the doubts you allude to expressed in several quarters, but this will set them all at rest. It was just the one thing required to cap the work on insectivorous plants. What capital work Frank is doing!

I have nothing in the way of boasting to set off against it. The year has been a very bad one for jelly-fish, so that sometimes I have not been able to work at them for several days at a time. The most important new observation is perhaps the following.

Fig. 3.

Suppose a portion of Aurelia to be cut into the form of a pair of trousers, in such a way that a ganglion, a, occupies the bottom of one of the legs. Usually, of course, contractile waves starting from a course along to b, and thence round to c and backwards to d. But in one specimen I observed that every now and then the exact converse took place—viz. the contractile wave starting at d to course to c, b, and a. On now excising the ganglion at a both sets of contractile waves ceased—thus showing that even in the case where they started from d it was the ganglion at a which started them. This power on the part of Medusoid ganglia to discharge their influence at a distance from their own seat I have also observed in other forms of section, and it affords the best kind of evidence in favour of nerves.

On the days when I could get no jelly-fish I took to star-fish. I want, if possible, to make out the functions of the sand-canal and the aviculæ; but as yet I have only discovered the difficulties to be overcome. I had intended to make a cell to cover the calcareous plate at the end of the sand-canal, and to fill the cell with dye, in order to test Siebold's hypothesis that the whole apparatus is a filter for the ambulacral system; but Providence seems to have specially designed that no substance in creation should be adapted for sticking to the back of a starfish.

The aviculæ are very puzzling things. I am sure Allen is wrong in his hypothesis of their function being to remove parasitical growths; for, on the one hand, parasites are swarming around them unheeded, and on the other, they go snapping away apparently at nothing. It is more easy, however, to say what they are not than what they are.

I went a few days ago to see the vine. It is now five feet high and vigorous, but I believe spring is the proper time for grafting.

With best thanks for your 'boasting' and good wishes, I remain very sincerely and most respectfully yours,

Geo. J. Romanes.