selection commenced, between the products of the wild or self-sown and artificially-sown plants there would be no difference, and consequently nothing could be gained by transporting the artificial fruits or roots where the wild might be obtained, though from imitating the practice of planting a benefit would certainly be experienced. This would probably account for the large number of the Dioscorea that have passed into cultivation in various parts of the world. Where the first agricultural community arose it is impossible to determine, but we may possibly discover where the conditions necessary to such a result occurred. These conditions were obviously a settled population, a regular climate favourable to vegetable growth, a fertile soil, and fruits, roots, or other indigenous esculents already in use. From the kitchenmiddens* “Man before Metals.” Professor N. Joly. or shell-heaps found along the shores of the Baltic, and from similar remains in other parts of the world, we learn that primitive races, who subsisted by fishing, often occupied the same locality for a great length of time. On the shores and islands of tropical seas, and in the estuaries of great rivers flowing into these seas, the physical conditions above enumerated occur in many places. Here, then, fishing communities, having once received the idea of increasing their supply of vegetable food by planting, might well develope into agricultural communities, or even into agricultural states. The Japanese, who have undoubtedly been an agricultural people from a very ancient time, asserting that they are the descendants of fishermen, still maintain the practice of including a piece of seaweed or dried fish with any gift they may have to bestow, regarding this as a token of their origin, † “Unbeaten Tracks in Japan.” Mrs. Bishop (Isabella Bird). fish being also the only animal food used by a great mass of the people. Throughout the Malay Archipelago, also, fish and vegetables fully supply the requirements of the inhabitants, who thus seem to be constitutionally independent of other descriptions of animal food. Pickering,‡ “Races of Man.” C. Pickering. speculating on the origin of agriculture, made the table-lands of Thibet, Mexico, and Peru the birthplaces of the art. The open, garden-like nature of the vegetation, and the mild, uniform, moist climates of these elevated tracts, together with the many indigenous edible roots, would, he considered, have suggested the idea of increasing the food-supply by planting. On the other hand, he contended that in a dense forest country the clearing of the land would demand an amount of labour rude savages are incapable of; but we know that amongst rude agricultural people who have