1 These papers were read at various dates between February 1869 and January 1871, before the Torquay Natural History Society.

2 Read before the Devonshire Association, July 1870.

3 Horace, Odes, I. xvi. 13:—

4 Lyell, ‘Principles of Geology,’ vol. ii. p. 324. Tenth Edition.

5 Darwin, ‘Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ vol. ii. p. 251.

6 1,073,741,824 grains.

7 ‘On the Origin of Species,’ p. 74. Fourth Edition.

8 Darwin, ‘Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ vol. ii. p. 379.

9 37 dwts. 7 grs., or 895 grs., between seven and eight times the size of the wild fruit. See ‘Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ vol. i. p. 356.

10 Darwin, ‘Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ passim.

11 ‘Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ vol. ii. pp. 348–351.

12 An important caution may here be quoted from Mr. Herbert Spencer. ‘An impression,’ he says, ‘has been given by those who have popularized the sentiments of Embryologists, that, during its development, each higher organism passes through stages in which it resembles the adult forms of lower organisms—that the embryo of a man is at one time like a fish, and at another time like a reptile. This is not the fact. The fact established is, that up to a certain point the embryos of a man and a fish continue similar, and that then differences begin to appear and increase—the one embryo approaching more and more towards the form of a fish; the other diverging from it more and more. And so with the resemblances to the more advanced types.’—Principles of Biology, vol. i. p. 143.

13 ‘Origin of Species,’ p. 270. Mr. Darwin shows how the hexagonal cells of the hive-bee can have arisen from the simple cylindrical form, by bringing the cylinders sufficiently near together, so that their outlines, if completed, would intersect.

The humble-bee makes separate and very irregular rounded cells.

The melipona domestica makes cells that are nearly spherical, but too near together for the spheres to be complete, flat walls of wax being built where they tend to intersect.

A little extra regularity, advantageous for the saving of wax and labour, would produce the symmetrical comb of the hive-bee with its two layers of hexagonal prisms.

14 See ‘Principles of Biology,’ vol. i. pp. 428–431.

15 ‘Origin of Species,’ p. 213; ‘Principles of Biology,’ vol. i. pp. 392, 394. The walking-fishes of India and the mud-fishes of Ceylon and New Zealand are described in an interesting article by Dr. Day of Torquay, in ‘All the Year Round’ for June 11th, 1870. Dr. Day seems to think the climbing powers of the anabas scandens less satisfactorily attested than other attributes of these extraordinary groups.

16 Carpenter, ‘Animal Physiology,’ chap. 14.

17 The design of this Essay was not, as has been erroneously supposed, to disprove the universality of the Deluge by help of Darwinism, but to remove one great obstacle to the general acceptance of Darwinism by disproving the universality of the Deluge. Taking the Theory of Development for granted, a recent universal Deluge would be too obviously impossible to need arguing against.

18 Lyell, ‘Principles of Geology,’ ii. 332.

19 Ibid. ii. 344.

20 Lyell, ii. 336.

21 ‘The Malay Archipelago,’ vol. ii. p. 448.

22 ‘Genesis of the Earth and of Man,’ p. 117; quoted in Sir J. Lubbock’s ‘Prehistoric Times,’ p. 314.

23 A religious and supremely orthodox poet of the last century enquires, ‘Where is the dust that has not been alive?’—Young, ‘Night Thoughts,’ Night IX, 1. 87.

24 ‘Mushrooms and Toadstools.’—Worthington G. Smith, p. 17.

25 ‘Genesis of the Earth and of Man,’ pp. 113, 114.

26 Genesis, chap. xi.

27 Sir John Lubbock, ‘Prehistoric Times,’ pp. 338, 346, 452; Herodotus, iv. 26.

28 See Mill’s ‘History of British India,’ book ii. ch. i. and notes.

29 ‘Prehistoric Man,’ Dr. Daniel Wilson, p. 101.

30 ‘The Daughter of Galileo,’ by the author of ‘Mary Powell,’ p. 283.

31 ‘Origin of Species,’ p. 268.

32 ‘Good Words for the Young,’ June 1870. Animal Defences. By A.W. Drayson.

33 Wallace, ‘Essays on Natural Selection,’ p. 227.

34 ‘The Spectator,’ No. 120.

35 ‘Spectator,’ No. 121.

36 Nos. 156, 157.

37 ‘Spectator,’ No. 519.

38 ‘Natural History,’ § 985. ‘It is a common experience that dogs know the dog-killer; when, as in times of infection, some petty fellow is sent out to kill the dogs; and that though they have never seen him before, yet they will all come forth, and bark and fly at him.’

39 See ‘Knight’s Half-Hours with the Best Authors.’ No. 185: from ‘The Fool of Quality.’

40 ‘Essays on Natural Selection,’ p. 248.

41 Ibid. p. 128.

42 This Essay was originally prepared as a sermon for Trinity Sunday. For the text were quoted the well-known words of 2 Peter ii. 16, ‘The dumb ass, speaking with man’s voice, forbad the madness of the prophet.’ The design was to show that some of the most unpopular novelties in scientific opinion bore no necessary antagonism to the deepest mysteries of Christian doctrine. In regard to such an attempt it is perhaps needless to add that the kindliness of the design was not fully appreciated by those for whose benefit it was intended.

43 As in the inscription ‘Jehu, the son of Omri,’ referred to by Lord A.C. Hervey, in Smith’s Dict. of the Bible, Art. ‘Genealogy.’

44 Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Art. ‘Genealogy of Jesus Christ,’ Lord A.C. Hervey, referring to Dr. Mill. Compare also Hengstenberg, Genuineness of the Pentateuch, vol. ii. p. 294, Translation, 1847.

45 Sir J. Lubbock, ‘Prehistoric Times,’ p. 502, second edition.

46 Ibid. p. 223.

47 Ibid. p. 233.

48 See chapter on Marriage, in Sir J. Lubbock’s ‘Origin of Civilization.’

49 Sir J. Lubbock, ‘Prehistoric Times,’ p. 380; Sir C. Lyell, ‘Antiquity of Man,’ p. 27.

50 Lyell, ‘Elements of Geology,’ p. 118, ed. 1865.

51 Messrs. Pengelly and Vivian, resident at Torquay, acting members of the distinguished committee of exploration.

52 See Reports of British Association, 1868, p. 57, and 1869, p. 199, by W. Pengelly, Esq., F.R.S.

53 This is the popular name for them. They do not petrify the specimens placed in them, but only coat them with stalagmite.

54 The resuming process has not yet been adopted by the modern Fuegians, for Dr. Hooker informs us that at the extreme south of Tierra del Fuego, and in mid-winter, he has often seen the men lying asleep in their wigwams, without a scrap of clothing, and the women standing naked, and some with children at their breasts, in the water up to their middles gathering limpets and other shell fish, while the snow fell thickly on them and on their equally naked babies.’—Sir J. Lubbock, ‘Prehistoric Times,’ p. 532. Jerome declares that he had himself seen the Attacotti, a British tribe, eating human flesh. See Gibbon (vol. iii. p. 270, ed. 1854), who in several passages refers to the practice among various British tribes of going naked, especially in war, citing Appian, Ammianus, and Giraldus Cambrensis as his authorities for British customs. It will be remembered that CÆsar speaks even of the Southern Britons as fighting ‘omnibus membris expediti.’

55 ‘Report of British Association, 1869,’ p. 201.

56 Nov. 21, 1870.

57 A formation later than the Devonian, and earlier than the New Red Sandstone.

58 Revelation x. 6, Authorised Version.

59 See Mr. Pengelly’s paper on the subject in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for 1868.

60 ‘Acadian Geology,’ Dawson, p. 386.

61 See ‘Lecture on Coal,’ by W. Boyd Dawkins, Esq., M.A., F.R.S. Manchester, 1870.

62 Address to the British Association, 1868, p. 66 of the Report.

63 In the Collection of W. Pengelly, Esq., F.R.S.

64 This and the three following letters were originally addressed to the Editor of the Torquay Directory, in answer to a gentleman who, in company with large multitudes of his fellow-Britons, both male and female, holds and upon occasion upholds a mass of opinions on Science and Religion, any one of which opinions individually may be right or may be wrong, but which, when held collectively, seem to my humble understanding to be logically incoherent.

65 Reprinted from ‘Nature,’ No. 30.

66 Reprinted from ‘Nature,’ No. 56.

67 Applying to these caterpillars Mr. A Murray’s recent hypothesis for explaining ‘mimicry’ by hybridization, we should draw the poetical inference that a happy marriage is possible between a butterfly and a rose-bush.

68 ‘Nature,’ No. 66.

69 ‘Genesis of Species,’ p. 57, quotation (somewhat obscure as it stands) from the North British Review for June, 1867.

70 ‘Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ vol. ii. p. 63.