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BRITISH ASSOCIAIION, MEETING AT EXETER. 291
lions put upon tliem. That he could not do, and he should therefore
retire.—Dr. Wilkes considered Mr. Darwin a great observer, but by no
means an inductive reasoner.—Mr. E. Vivian pointed out that all the
old landmarks had been removed, and proceeded to make a few state-
ments with regard to Kent's Cavern. He believed scientific and reli-
gious men diifered in degree, and not in principle. There was no
possibility of stopping short of man being contemporaneous with the
fossil animals, and, in fact, preglacial. He had always believed that
Moses had written a cosmogony, and he did not yet doubt that it
would be in some way reconciled with science. There had been a
very wide interchange of species, and when they admitted development
they must have a number of separate acts of creation, of which there
was no evidence.—Mr. Wallace did not consider that any one of the
the papers ought to have been read in that place. If the opponents of
Darwinism wished to come forward, let them bring either new facts or
new arguments.—The President considered the most pertinent obser-
vations that had been made with regard to Darwinism came from Mr.
Vivian. He had rightly said that the great difficulty was to account
for existing animals. How were they to account for their difference
from former ones ? Either the elephant must be a spontaneous crea-
tion, or was the result of descent. Neither of the writers of the papers
knew what Darwinism was, although really it might have been ex-
pected that they would have informed themselves about it before they
wrote.—Dr. M'Cann explained that he had read the books to which
Professor Huxley had referred, and said, moreover, that the question
had been shirked.
" 0)1 an Alteration in the Structure of Lychnis dioica, observed in
connection icith the Development of a Parasitic Fun(jus." By Miss
]5ecker. While residing near Accrington, in Lancashire, Miss Becker
was struck with the remarkable appearance of certain plants of Lychnis
dioica, which, instead of the usual straw-coloured anthers, displayed a
purple mark in the centre of the flower, giving the effect of a handsome
dark eye. Further examination showed that, contrary to the usual
habit of the plant, many of them were bisexual, each flower containing
a pistil as well as stamens ; except for the shortness of the styles, these
pistils were as well developed as those of ordinary female plants. In
I860 she sent a few flowers to Mr. Charles Darwin, who, after
submitting ihe flower to microscopic investigation, wrote, " The