It is held by some botanists that the bright colour of Alpine (and Norwegian) samples of a flower elsewhere of a paler colour is due to the direct action of the greater sunlight of the high regions in causing the formation of pigment. This is inadmissible. The sunlight cannot act in that way. It causes increased formation of nutriment by acting on the chlorophyll, and an Alpine plant thus highly charged with nutritive matters can afford to form more abundant pigment than a plant which enjoys less brilliant sunshine. The high-coloured Alpine flowers are a breed or race; a pale-coloured plant taken to the Alps from below does not itself become high coloured. It is a matter of natural selection. The occasional high-coloured "spontaneous" variations produced from seed have an advantage in the short summer of the high Alps. They attract the visits of the few insects in the short season more surely than do the paler individuals, and consequently they are fertilized and reproduce, whilst the race of the paler individuals dies out from failure to attract the insects. Thus we get a high-coloured race established in the mountains, a race that can make haste and seize the brief opportunities of the short but brilliant summer. There are many peculiarities of form and colour of plants the life conditions of which are diverse (e.g., woodland, moorland, aquatic, seashore, dry air, moist air, etc.), which can be shown by accurate observation to be specially related to those life conditions. Those conditions allow the peculiarities to survive and establish a race, in some cases a species, whilst preventing the maturity or destroying the life of those individuals not presenting that advantageous peculiarity of variation.
THERE is at the present day in this country a real and most happy revival of interest in the great art of dancing as exhibited on the stage. We owe this to the creative ability of the musical composers and directors of the Russian Imperial Ballet, as well as to the highly-trained and gifted Russian artists who have visited this country, and especially to the poetical genius of Madame Anna Pavlova. Though dancing may seem, on first thought, a subject remote from science, yet, like all other human developments, it is a matter for scientific investigation, and one upon which science can throw much light. What is the origin and essential nature of "dancing"? Do animals dance? What is its early history in mankind? What is its relation not merely historically, but from the point of view of psychology--the study of the mind--to other arts? What is its real "value" and possible achievement?