This discussion casts a curious light upon the whole question of selection. Not of course upon the choice of elementary species or varieties out of the original motley assembly which nature and old cultures offer us, but upon the selection of the best individuals for isolation and for the improvement of the race. These are, according to my views, only the best nourished ones. Their external conditions have been the [391] most favorable, not only from the beginning of their own life in the field, but also during their embryonic stages, and even during the preparation of these latter in the life of their parents and perhaps even their grandparents. Selection then, would only be the choice of the best nourished individuals. In connection with the foregoing arguments I have tried to separate the choicest of the poppies with the largest crown of pistilloid stamens, from the most vigorous individuals. As we have already seen, these two attributes are as a rule proportional to one another. Exceptions occur, but they may be explained by some later changes in the external circumstances, as I have also pointed out. As a rule, these exceptions are large fruits with comparatively too few converted stamens; they are exactly the contrary from what is required for a selection. Or plants, which from the beginning were robust, may have become crowded together by further growth, and for these reasons become weaker than their congeners, though retaining the full development of the staminodal crown, which was fixed during the sensitive period and before the crowding. I have searched my beds yearly for several years in vain to find individuals which might recommend themselves for selection without having the stamp of permanent, [392] or at least temporarily better, nourishment. No starting-point for such an independent selection has ever been met with. Summing up the consequences of this somewhat extended discussion, we may state it as a rule that a general proportion between the individual strength and the degree of development of the anomaly exists. And from this point of view it is easy to see that all external causes which are known to affect the one, must be expected to influence the other also. It will therefore hardly be necessary to give a full description of all my experiments on the relations of the monstrosity to external conditions. A hasty survey will suffice.