Darwin's Backyard

by James T. Costa

  I had the pleasure of working with a truly outstanding team at W. W. Norton to bring this book to fruition, starting with my editor, Amy Cherry, who deftly wields a veritable scimitar of an editorial pen, and her able editorial assistant Remy Cawley—thanks to you both! I thank, too, the book’s designer, Helene Berinsky, and copyeditor Charlotte Kelchner for their fine efforts, and Norton’s contracts manager Jesse Fox for advice and assistance. Last but far from least, I owe a debt of gratitude to filmmaker Erica Rothman of Nightlight Productions for expertly documenting our Evolution in the Blue Ridge Darwin-inspired experiments in Highlands, and for introducing me to Wendy Strothman and Lauren McLeod of the Strothman Agency. Many thanks, Wendy, for your advice and for championing this project from start to finish, and Lauren for all of your kind assistance along the way. I could not have asked for finer agents and advocates.

  NOTES

  Abbreviations

  People

  AG Asa Gray

  ARW Alfred Russel Wallace

  CD Charles Darwin

  CL Charles Lyell

  ED Emma Darwin

  EAD Erasmus Alvey Darwin (CD’s brother)

  ErD Erasmus Darwin (CD’s grandfather)

  FD Francis (Frank) Darwin

  GD George Darwin

  HD Horace Darwin

  HL Henrietta (Etty) Litchfield née Darwin

  JDH Joseph Dalton Hooker

  JL John Lubbock

  JSH John Stevens Henslow

  LD Leonard (Lenny or Leo) Darwin

  THH Thomas Henry Huxley

  WD William (Willy) Darwin

  WDF William Darwin Fox

  Works

  Annotated Origin C. R. Darwin and J. T. Costa, The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009)

  Autobiography C. R. Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882, ed. N. Barlow (London: Collins, 1958)

  BD C. R. Darwin, Beagle Diary, ed. R. D. Keynes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)

  CCD C. R. Darwin, The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, ed. F. Burkhardt et al., 24 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

  CDSP C. R. Darwin, Charles Darwin’s Shorter Publications 1829–1883, ed. J. van Wyhe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)

  DCP Darwin Correspondence Project (www.darwinproject.ac.uk/)

  DED E. Darwin, Diaries of Emma Darwin, DAR 242.1-60 (Cambridge University Library)

  Climbing Plants C. R. Darwin, “On the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants,” Journal of the Linnean Society of London (Botany) 9 (1865): 1–118.

  Descent C. R. Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (London: John Murray, 1871)

  EDFL E. Darwin, Emma Darwin: A Century of Family Letters, ed. H. Litchfield (London: John Murray, 1915)

  ExB C. R. Darwin, Experiment book, DAR 157a (Cambridge University Library)

  Fertilisation C. R. Darwin, The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom (London: John Murray, 1876)

  Forms of Flowers C. R. Darwin, The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species (London: John Murray, 1877)

  Foundations C. R. Darwin, The Foundations of the Origin of Species, ed. F. Darwin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909)

  Insectivorous Plants C. R. Darwin, Insectivorous Plants (London: John Murray, 1875)

  Journal C. R. Darwin, Darwin’s ‘Journal’ (1809–1881), DAR 158.1-76 (Cambridge University Library)

  LL C. R. Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. F. Darwin (London: John Murray, 1887)

  Movement C. R. Darwin, The Power of Movement in Plants (London: John Murray, 1880)

  Natural Selection C. R. Darwin, Charles Darwin’s Natural Selection Manuscript, ed. R. C. Stauffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975)

  Orchids C. R. Darwin, On the Various Contrivances By Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects (London: John Murray, 1862)

  Origin C. R. Darwin, On the Origin of Species (London: John Murray, 1859)

  Principles C. Lyell, Principles of Geology (London: John Murray, 1830–1833)

  Q&E C. R. Darwin, Questions & Experiments Notebook, ed. Barrett et al. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987)

  Researches C. R. Darwin, Journal of Researches (London: Colburn, 1839; 2nd ed. London: John Murray, 1845)

  RN C. R. Darwin, Red Notebook, ed. P. H. Barrett et al. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987)

  TAN C. R. Darwin, Torn Apart Notebook, ed. P. H. Barrett et al. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987)

  TN-A, -B, -C, -D, -E C. R. Darwin, Transmutation Notebooks A–E, ed. Barrett et al. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987)

  Variation C. R. Darwin, Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (London: John Murray, 2 vols., 1868)

  WCP Wallace Correspondence Project, ed. G. Beccaloni (www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online)

  Worms C. R. Darwin, The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms (London: John Murray, 1881)

  Chapter 1. Origins of an Experimentiser

  1 Autobiography, 46. See Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), chapter 1, for an outstanding account of Darwin’s early life.

  2 For lucid treatments of the spirit of the times, see J. Uglow, The Lunar Men (London: Faber and Faber, 2002), and R. Holmes, The Age of Wonder (New York: Pantheon, 2008).

  3 Autobiography, 27.

  4 Autobiography, 46.

  5 ErD, The Temple of Nature (London: J. Johnson, 1803), Canto I, part V.

  6 See, for example, A. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

  7 P. R. Sloan, “Darwin’s Invertebrate Program,” in The Darwinian Heritage, ed. D. Kohn (Princeton: Princeton University Press and Nova Pacifica, 1985), 86.

  8 Grant is quoted in Sloan (1985), 84.

  9 Autobiography, 49.

  10 Autobiography, 59.

  11 Autobiography, 62.

  12 CD to Leonard Jenyns, 17 October 1846; CCD 3:354.

  13 CD to JL, September 1854; CCD 5:211.

  14 CD to WDF, 15 February 1831; CCD 1:118.

  15 W. Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (London: John W. Parker, 1840), 1:cxiii.

  16 CD to WDF, 7 April 1831; CCD 1:120.

  17 CD to Caroline Darwin, 28 April 1831; CCD 1:122.

  18 John Medows Rodwell to FD, 8 July 1882 (DAR 112:94v); quoted in CCD 1:125, n. 2.

  19 CD to WDF, 9 July 1831; CCD 1:124.

  20 M. Roberts, “Darwin at Llanymynech: The Evolution of a Geologist,” British Journal for the History of Science 29 (1996), 471.

  21 Autobiography, 69–70.

  22 Autobiography, 139.

  23 See the wonderfully detailed accounts of the voyage by Darwin biographers Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist (New York: Warner Books, 1991), and Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). See also Darwin’s own account, initially published as the Journal of Researches and later reissued as The Voyage of the Beagle (Researches; Darwin 1839a, 1845).

  24 R. Fitzroy, Proceedings of the Second Expedition, 1831–1836. 3 vol. (London: Henry Colburn, 1839), 2:49.

  25 CD to JSH, 18 May–16 June 1832; CCD 1:236.

  26 Autobiography, 77.

  27 C. Lyell, Principles of Geology (London: John Murray, 1830), 1:74.

  28 CD to JSH, 18 May–16 June 1832; CCD 1: 237.

  29 BD (11 January 1832), 22.

  30 R. L. Keynes, ed., Charles Darwin’s Zoology Notes & Specimen Lists from H.M.S. Beagle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 232; DAR 31.1:262, Cambridge University Library.

  31 CD to Catherine Darwin, 20 July 1834; CCD 1:391.

  32 CD to JSH, 24 July 1834; CCD 1:399–400.

&nbs
p; 33 Quotations taken from the transcription by Sloan (1985), 105 [DAR 31.1:279v], 107 [DAR 5:99], and 109 [DAR 31.2:360].

  34 BD (19 January 1836), 402.

  35 N. Barlow, ed., “Darwin’s Ornithological Notes,” Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Historical Series 2, no. 7 (1963), 262a.

  36 Researches, 31.

  37 Researches, 222–223.

  38 See Keynes (2000), xxvii, n. 49 and CCD 4:29.

  39 Researches, 384, 387.

  40 Researches, 37.

  41 Researches, 44.

  42 CD to Alexander von Humboldt, 1 November 1839; CCD 2:239.

  43 Indeed, Darwin’s model of coral atoll evolution still stands today, and therein lies a fascinating story in itself—see D. Dobbs, Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral (New York: Pantheon, 2005).

  44 CD to Leonard Horner, 29 August 1844; CCD 3:55.

  45 Researches, 368–369.

  46 Researches, 376.

  47 Researches, 379.

  48 Origin, 366.

  49 CD to Henry Fawcett, 18 September 1861; CCD 9:269.

  50 TN-C, 76–77.

  51 TN-A, 180, and TN-B, 125e and 248.

  Chapter 2. Barnacles to Barbs

  1 BD (8–14 and 15–16 January 1835), 279.

  2 R. L. Keynes, ed., Charles Darwin’s Zoology Notes & Specimen Lists from H.M.S. Beagle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 274–276; DAR 31.305–307, Cambridge University Library.

  3 BD (19 January 1835), 280.

  4 CD to WDF, 15 February 1836; CCD 1:491.

  5 BD (1 October 1836), 446.

  6 C. Kinglsey, Glaucus, or, The Wonders of the Shore (London: Macmillan & Co., 1855), 87.

  7 For a list of books aboard the Beagle see http://test.darwin-online.org.uk/BeagleLibrary/Beagle_Library_Introduction.htm.

  8 A transcription of the zoology notes from the Edinburgh notebook can be found in P. H. Barrett et al., eds., Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836–1844 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 475–486.

  9 Richard Owen, Hunterian Lecture no. 4, 9 May 1837. See P. R. Sloan, ed., The Hunterian Lectures in Comparative Anatomy, May and June 1837 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 193.

  10 TN-B, 44.

  11 This marginal note appears on p. 442 of volume two of Darwin’s copy of the Principles of Geology (fifth edition, 1837)—the very last page. The Biodiversity Heritage Library and Cambridge University Libraries have partnered to make Darwin’s personal library available online, fully digitized and with transcribed marginal notes. To view this page go to: www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/105893#page/451/mode/1up.

  12 Quoted in T. A. Appel, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate: French Biology in the Decades Before Darwin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 1.

  13 TN-B, 111.

  14 See Barrett et al. (1987), 197, notes 111-1–112-5.

  15 Barrett et al. (1987), 242.

  16 J. S. Sebright, The Art of Improving the Breeds of Domestic Animals, in a Letter Addressed to the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, K.B. (London: John Harding, 1809), 5, 24–25.

  17 Sebright (1809), 26.

  18 J. Wilkinson, Remarks on the Improvement of Cattle, etc. In a Letter to Sir John Saunders Sebright Bart. M.D, 3rd ed. (Nottingham: H. Barnett, 1820), 4–5.

  19 TN-C, 133.

  20 TN-D, 20, 44.

  21 TN-D, 118.

  22 TN-E, 118.

  23 A transcription of the Questions and Experiments (Q&E) notebook can be found in Barrett et al. (1987), 487–516.

  24 The mystery of Darwin’s illness has inspired much speculation and medical sleuthing. See R. O. Pasnau, “Darwin’s Illness: A Biophychosocial Perspective,” Psychosomatics 31 (1990) 121–1281; F. P. Smith et al., “Darwin’s Illness,” Lancet 336 (1990), 1139–1140; J. Adler et al., “The Dueling Diagnoses of Darwin,” Journal of the American Medical Association 277 (1997), 1275–1277; R. Colp, “The Dueling Diagnoses of Darwin,” Journal of the American Medical Association 277 (1997), 1275–1276; R. Colp, “More on Darwin’s Illness,” History of Science 38 (2000), 219–236; and A. K. Campbell and S. B. Matthews, “Darwin’s Illness Revealed,” Postgraduate Medical Journal 81 (2005), 248–251, to review a diversity of hypotheses.

  25 See Foundations for published versions of the 1842 “Sketch” and 1844 “Essay,” edited by Francis Darwin.

  26 Autobiography, 68.

  27 CD to JDH, 11 January 1844; CCD 3:2.

  28 JDH to CD, 4–9 Sept 1845; CCD 3:250–251.

  29 CD to JDH, 10 September 1845; CCD 3:253.

  30 See letters of 10 and 14 September 1845; CCD 3:253 and 254.

  31 J. Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 471.

  32 CD to JDH, 6 and 12 November 1846; CCD 3:363 and 365.

  33 CD to JSH, 1 April 1848; CCD 4:128.

  34 CD to JDH, 10 May 1848; CCD 4:140.

  35 CD to JDH, 10 May 1848; CCD 4:140.

  36 CD to CL, 2 September 1849; CCD 4:253.

  37 See CCD volume 4, 388–409 (Appendix II) for a concise overview of Darwin’s barnacle studies. See also the engaging treatment by R. Stott, Darwin and the Barnacle (London: Faber and Faber, 2003).

  38 CD to JDH, 13 June 1850; CCD 4:344.

  39 This anecdote, attributed to the Darwin’s friend and neighbor John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), was reported by Francis Darwin, More Letters of Charles Darwin (London: John Murray, 1903), 1:38.

  40 CD to WDF, 27 March 1855; CCD 5:294.

  41 TN-E, 136.

  42 D. J. Browne, The American Bird Fancier; Considered with Reference to the Breeding, Rearing, Feeding, Management, and Peculiarities of Cage and House Birds . . . (New York: C. M. Saxton, 1850), 83.

  43 CD to WD, 29 November 1855; CCD 5:508.

  44 CD to WD, 26 February 1856; CCD 6:45.

  45 CD to William B. Tegetmeier, 18 May 1857; CCD 6:397.

  46 CD to Thomas Eyton, 3 & 9 December 1855; CCD 5:513, 522.

  47 ARW to Samuel Stevens, 21 August 1856 (WCP letter 1703). Wallace also corresponded with Darwin directly; in a letter to Wallace dated 1 May 1857 (CCD 6:387) Darwin mentioned receiving one from Wallace dated 10 October 1856, but this letter has been lost.

  48 CD to ARW, 1 May 1857; CCD 6:387; WCP letter 2086.

  49 Journal, 36v. A transcription of Darwin’s Journal for 1858 can be found in CCD 7:503 (Appendix II).

  50 Whitwell Elwin to John Murray, 3 May 1859; CCD 7:290.

  51 CD to THH, 16 December 1859; CCD 7:434.

  Chapter 3. Untangling the Bank

  1 Origin, 489.

  2 Origin, 489.

  3 Origin, 490.

  4 TN-E, 114.

  5 TN-D, 134–135.

  6 Foundations, 8, 90.

  7 See Annotated Origin, 67, n. 1, for a brief account of Darwin’s famous wedge metaphor.

  8 Origin, 62, 64.

  9 H. Milne-Edwards, Introduction á la zoologie générale (Paris: Victor Masson, 1851), 9.

  10 DAR 205.5, 149.

  11 CD to JDH, 5 June 1855; CCD 5:343.

  12 CD to JDH, 15 June 1855; CCD 5:354.

  13 See BBC news reports about the repeat of Darwin’s and Miss Thorley’s experiment at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/4607037.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5201816.stm.

  14 DAR 205.2:119r and 119v.

  15 DAR 205.5:157; note dated 19 August 1855.

  16 Natural Selection, 230.

  17 Natural Selection, 228.

  18 G. Sinclair, “On Cultivating a Collection of Grasses in Pleasure-Grounds or Flower-Gardens [and on the Utility of Studying the Gramineae],” The Gardener’s Magazine and Register of Rural & Domestic Improvement 1 (1826), 113.

  19 E. M. Fries, “A monograph of the Hieracia; being an Abstract of Prof. Fries’s ‘Symbolae ad Historiam Hieraciorum,’ translated and abridged,” Botanical Gazette 2 (1850), 188.

  20 CD to JDH, 11 March 1858; CCD 7:47.

  21 DAR 205.5; Darwin elabor
ated on this in Origin, p. 126: “Looking to the future, we can predict that the groups of organic beings which are now large and triumphant, and which are least broken up, that is, which as yet have suffered least extinction, will for a long period continue to increase.”

  22 ExB, 24–25.

  23 See Origin, 67.

  24 DAR 46.1:37r; note dated 24 April 1857.

  25 Journal, 36r; entry dated 22 April 1857.

  26 CD to JDH, 2 June 1857; CCD 6:404.

  27 CD to JL, 14 July 1857; CCD 6:430.

  28 CD to JDH, 14 July 1857; CCD 6:429.

  29 CD to JL, 14 July 1857; CCD 6:430.

  30 See Natural Selection, 149–154, for a summary of Darwin’s calculations.

  31 CD to JDH, 22 August 1857; CCD 6:443.

  32 CD to AG, 5 September 1857; CCD 6:448.

  33 Origin, 62.

  34 Anecdotes of Hutchinson’s childhood antics are recounted in N. G. Slack, G. Evelyn Hutchinson and the Invention of Modern Ecology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), chapter 2.

  Chapter 4. Buzzing Places

  1 CD to JL, September 1854; CCD 5:211.

  2 GD on “humble bees,” DAR 112.B18 ff.

  3 R. B. Freeman, “Charles Darwin on the Routes of Male Humble Bees,” Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Historical Series 3, no. 6 (1968), 182.

  4 Freeman (1968), 182.

  5 LD, “Memories of Down House,” The Nineteenth Century 106 (1929), 118.

  6 Freeman (1968), 183.

  7 LD (1929), 119.

  8 This statement comes from Kirby’s Bridgewater Treatise, first published in 1835. See W. Kirby, On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Creation of Animals, and in Their History, Habits, and Instincts, new edition, ed. Thomas Rymer Jones, 2 vols. (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1852), 2:246.

  9 Indeed, the “honeycomb conjecture” (as mathematicians know it) dates back more than 2,000 years to the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro, who wrote in 36 BC that honeycomb consisting of hexagons is more space-efficient than other shapes. Varro was proven correct only as recently as 1999, by University of Michigan mathematician Thomas Hales; mathematically inclined readers can check out his proof at the archive http://lanl.arxiv.org, “The Honeybee Conjecture,” paper ID 9906042.

  10 G. R. Waterhouse, “Bees,” Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 4 (1835), 153.