Galapagos Regained

by James Morrow

  “Three separate addresses, three kinds of coloration, utterly distinctive, fundamentally similar,” said Mr. Darwin. “And then one day, following the orbit of my sandwalk, I fell upon an answer. Like every other lizard known to science, the first iguanas to live in Galápagos were strictly terrestrial—but over the ages some colonies found it expedient to inhabit the archipelago’s coastlines, drawing sustenance from the sea. This natural transmutation process continued even after these iguanas became full-blown aquatic creatures, hence our red, black, and multicolored species. A similar story might be told of the three varieties of Galápagos giant tortoise. For example, Miss Bathurst?”

  Though once again caught off guard, she rose to the occasion, indicating the nearest tortoise with her index finger. “Domeshelled Boswell from James Isle”—she pivoted and pointed—“saddle-backed Tristan from Charles Isle”—again she pointed—“slope-backed Perseus from Indefatigable.”

  “Boswell, Tristan, and Perseus: all reasonably good swimmers and thus arguably sharing an ancestor that, once upon a time, inhabited South America,” said Mr. Darwin. “By riding the Humboldt Current westward from the mainland, one or two small but seaworthy tortoises could have reached the Encantadas, where in time their descendants became huge, for if no other animal regards you as prey, it matters not how conspicuous you appear. I would further hypothesize that our bright yellow, flat-spined terrestrial iguanas, found on a majority of islands, share a South American heritage with our sallow gray, high-spined iguanas, exclusive to Barrington.”

  “So your terrestrial iguanas can also swim?” asked Hooker.

  “Not very well, but that doesn’t tell against my theory. The ancestors of our land lizards could have traveled from the continent to Galápagos on uprooted trees or floating mats of vegetation.” Mr. Darwin moved his flattened hand up and down as would a raft adrift on ocean waves, then fluttered the fingers of the opposite hand in a pantomime of flight. “Now what of our birds? The anatomical evidence suggests that all four Galápagos mockingbird species sprang from a long-tailed type that flew over from Ecuador or Peru. In the case of our vermillion flycatchers, I believe that during my round-the-world journey I spotted the parent kind on the South American mainland, broader of wing than its Encantadas posterity and gifted with a heartier song. As for my finches, they’re probably all descended from a continental species called the blue-black grassquit.”

  “I could provide the judges with stuffed specimens of that very creature,” said Gould, draining his glass. “Not that I would ever make a bid for the Shelley Prize,” he added, so vehemently that Chloe thought perhaps he meant the opposite.

  “I’m hearing Buffon’s idea of allied species sharing a pedigree,” said Lyell. “I’m hearing Lamarck’s notion of evolution through the inheritance of acquired characteristics. But neither hypothesis constitutes a disproof of the God of Abraham.”

  “Not only do our two species of terrestrial iguana boast an ancestor in common with our aquatic iguanas,” Mr. Darwin continued in a tone of constrained exasperation, “but were you to travel back far enough in time, you would encounter an extinct creature that prefigured every variety of iguana to be found anywhere in the world. These primal lizards shared the Earth with primal turtles, primal snakes, and primal Crocodylia, all of them in turn sprung from a species of cold-blooded, egg-laying, scaly-skinned animal.”

  Mr. Gould switched allegiances, oloroso to Manzanilla. “An archetypal reptile? How intriguing.”

  “Not archetypal, John, nothing so poetic and Platonic as all that,” said Mr. Darwin. “For it happens that our originary reptile in turn traces to a mutable stock of proto-reptiles.”

  “So where does it all end?” asked Hooker.

  “You mean, ‘Where does it all begin?’ By my lights the natural history of our planet is like a fantastically complex shrub or tree. Follow the twigs, and you’ll come to the branches, that is, to the first types of mammal, reptile, amphibian, and fish. But why stop there? Why not scurry along the branches until we reach the trunk, where we’ll meet the most primitive lineages yet, ancestral insects, crustaceans, mollusks, amoebas, and algae. The journey continues, ever downward, until finally, at the base of the trunk, we come upon a single, seminal form. Need I point out that we’ve long since parted company with Genesis chapter one? And there’s the rub, gentlemen. If God played no role in the cavalcade of life on Earth, from protozoans to primates, it behooves us to wonder why He goes to all the bother of existing.”

  “Good heavens, Charles, you really do have a shot at the Shelley Prize,” said Hooker. “If I were an Alastor Hall rakehell, I’d be impressed.”

  “My desire to impress those poseurs is nil. Ah, but here comes Parslow. Let us forget my eccentric speculations and enjoy Daydy’s culinary arts.”

  The butler entered the vivarium pushing a tea cart laden with the feast. Speaking not a word, he deposited generous portions of lamb and vegetables on each guest’s plate.

  “Come, come, Charles, is your Tree of Life really so outlandish an idea?” said Hooker. “Did not your illustrious grandfather Erasmus posit that all warm-blooded creatures arose from a single filament?”

  “That estimable savant could describe no mechanism of transmutation,” Mr. Darwin asserted, then added, clucking his tongue, “but I can.”

  “So can the Church of England,” said Lyell.

  “Tell us about your mechanism,” said Hooker.

  “I’d rather not. It’s like confessing a murder.”

  “You’re amongst friends,” said Gould. “We’ll help you bury the body.”

  “First lunch, then deicide,” said Mr. Darwin.

  By Chloe’s reckoning it took the sages a mere thirty minutes to consume a meal that the staff had spent four hours preparing. Whilst the gentlemen ate, the children dutifully amused themselves, Willy ensnaring a cactus plant with the bola his father had brought back from Patagonia, Annie enacting a conversation between her Red Riding Hood doll and its lupine nemesis. (Mr. Darwin had indeed whittled a wolf for his eldest daughter, cloaking it in the dry and scraped pelt of a Derbyshire hare.) No sooner had the sages cleaned their plates than Parslow appeared, carrying a tray of puddings and a bottle of port.

  “I’m eager to hear about your momentous crime,” Hooker told the master of Down House, whereupon the butler blanched and hastily withdrew.

  “I’ll begin by making a naïve observation,” said Mr. Darwin. “Within any sexually reproducing population, the offspring vary, yes? My Annie, my Henrietta, and my Betty are not duplicates of Mrs. Darwin, nor do they mirror one another. In this phenomenon lies the success of those who seek to improve domestic livestock. Chance provides the breeder with unsolicited novelties that he proceeds to exploit, selecting who shall mate with whom—and thus perpetuating desirable characteristics. And so we get horses faster and stronger than their ancestors, sheep with thicker fleece, and cows of greater fecundity. I contend that, just as a man might produce a superior pig by design, so might Nature craft a better boar by accident.”

  “But how, Charles—how?” asked Gould, eating a forkful of apple tart.

  “Our planet is forever in flux. Even as we speak, the Earth’s face is changing through natural processes of erosion, sedimentation, and vulcanism. If that canny geologist Lyell were here, he would corroborate me.”

  “Pass the cherry tart,” said Lyell with a pained smile.

  “From an individual animal’s perspective, every alteration in its environment must be greeted with grave suspicion,” said Mr. Darwin. “Oft-times the creature finds itself standing by helplessly as temperatures plunge, food supplies diminish, plagues appear, and enemies flourish. But occasionally Nature favors an endangered population, gifting a few offspring with characteristics not only fortuitous but fortunate—a luxuriant pelt, equal to the harshest winter; a mighty jaw, stronger than the toughest nut; a hearty constitution, able to survive epidemics; elongated limbs, crucial for outpacing predators. Compared to their cousins, t
hese lucky juveniles are more likely to survive into adulthood, find mates—”

  “And pass along the felicitous trait!” interrupted Hooker. “What a pretty hypothesis!”

  “Eventually the modification spreads through the population, giving rise to a new variety, type, race, or species,” said Mr. Darwin. “Whilst conducting the judges about my zoo, I would bid them notice the broad, flat tail of Shadrack the marine iguana, essential for propelling him towards his underwater kelp dinner. Did Shadrack’s parents have such an appendage? Most probably, which is why they lived long enough to make Shadrack. His distant round-tailed relations, however, lacked this advantage, and so they lost what the Reverend Thomas Malthus famously called ‘the struggle for existence.’”

  “I must say, sir—your argument enjoys the merit of logic,” said Gould.

  “As did Satan’s presentation to our Savior,” said Lyell. “Forgive me, Charles. I didn’t mean to compare you to the Devil.”

  “Nor yourself to Christ, I trust,” said Mr. Darwin.

  The geologist scowled, licking cherry juice from his lips.

  “What other adaptations would you commend to the judges’ attention?” asked Gould.

  “The sturdy beaks of our ground-dwelling finches,” Mr. Darwin replied, “ideal for penetrating the fruits on which they feed. The slim beaks of our warbler finches, perfect for extracting insects from trees. The long bills of our Hood’s Isle mockingbirds, useful for cracking open nutritious booby eggs in their native habitat. The short bills of our Chatham mockingbirds, suited to consuming the palo santo seeds that sustained them back home. Finally, the arched shells of our saddleback tortoises, a modification that enabled them to reach the higher fruits on their beloved Charles Isle cactus plants.”

  “Have you committed your theory to paper?” asked Hooker.

  Mr. Darwin snapped his fingers in the same emphatic fashion that had heralded his decision to offer Chloe a situation at Down House. “Miss Bathurst, would you please go to my study and rummage about in the desk, left side, lower drawer? You’ll find a sketch of thirty-five pages titled ‘An Essay Concerning Descent with Modification.’”

  “I’ll fetch it straightaway, sir,” said Chloe, setting down her tea.

  “No, I don’t want the sketch. Retrieve what lies beneath—a manuscript called Towards a Theory of Natural Selection. In your absence I shall mind the children.”

  “As you might imagine, I have mounds of questions,” said Hooker. “The problem of blending, for example. If a male marine iguana boasting a powerful tail mates with a female of more feeble extension, wouldn’t their offspring inherit mediocre tails?”

  “Not to mention the problem of time,” said Lyell. “The drama you’re describing would have taken many millions of years to unfold. Can our planet truly be so ancient? I’m delighted that my book made buttered eggs of Bishop Ussher’s six-thousand-year-old Earth, but really, sir, you’re talking about a considerable slice of eternity.”

  “Then there’s the problem of Man,” said Gould. “Are you impish enough to apply this theory to our origins? Yes, Charles, you wily son of a monkey, I believe you are.”

  “Excellent questions, all three, and quite possibly fatal to the theory of natural selection,” said Mr. Darwin. “Let me offer my provisional answers.”

  * * *

  Chloe left the zoological dome in a state of frothing frustration, for she greatly desired to know how Mr. Darwin would address the objections raised by the scientific triumvirate. Anyone wishing to claim the Shelley Prize with a disproof of God—herself, for example—must be prepared to speak of blending, time, and Man. This hypothetical contestant could not allow a pious judge to wreck her case by appealing to regressive lizard-tails, a young planet, or a Supreme Being’s decision to bless His favorite creatures with rational intellects.

  Of course, she had no intention of simply stealing her employer’s theory. That would be wrong. Also, it might not work. After all, she’d comprehended barely half of what Mr. Darwin had told his guests, so it was likely that, unless she received instruction from the master transmutationist himself, the Anglican judges at Alastor Hall would succeed in befuddling her. No, the ideal scheme would find her traveling to Oxford only after Mr. Darwin had endorsed her project and tutored her in the nuances of his disproof.

  Entering the study, she found the manuscript in the specified location, nestled beneath the crumpled, tea-stained, thirty-five-page sketch from which it had descended. She snatched up Towards a Theory of Natural Selection and scurried away, leaving “An Essay Concerning Descent with Modification” in place. By the time she was back in the vivarium, Mr. Darwin had dispensed with blending, time, and Man. Now he was talking about crustaceans.

  “That’s right, Joseph. The male of the Chonos Isles barnacle has two organs of procreation.”

  “Two?” said Mr. Hooker. “I find it difficult enough maintaining one.”

  Catching sight of Chloe, Mr. Darwin cut the conversation short with an embarrassed laugh. “Ah, Miss Bathurst, there you are. Kindly deliver my theory to our botanist.”

  She quirked Mr. Hooker a smile and placed the pages in his grasp.

  “Impressive,” he said, leafing through the manuscript. “But I shan’t have time to read it ere I embark for India.”

  “Take it with you, Joseph,” said Mr. Darwin. “Last month I paid a scrivener to transcribe a fair copy, which I keep under lock and key. I’ve instructed Emma to publish it upon my death. Were you to mislay these pages, I shouldn’t count the loss a tragedy.”

  “Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to protect them,” said Hooker.

  “Charles, you’ve found a convert,” said Gould.

  “I’m scarcely converted,” said Hooker. “Merely curious.”

  “Miss Bathurst, I suspect you found our scientific chatter impossibly tedious,” said Mr. Darwin.

  “Au contraire, I thought the conversation entrancing,” she said.

  “Such a sweet girl you’ve hired, Charles,” said Lyell in a treacly tone. “I’ll wager she’s intelligent, too. I pray you, Miss Bathurst, give us your opinion of this Tree of Life business.”

  “May I speak freely, sir?”

  “Of course,” said Lyell.

  “I think Mr. Darwin’s idea makes a ripping good yarn,” said Chloe, acting the part of a person who understood transmutationism. “As to its truth or falsity, I am not competent to venture a conclusion—but I must say I shan’t ever look at a finch’s beak, a mockingbird’s bill, a tortoise’s shell, or a lizard’s tail in quite the same way again.”

  And with that the four gentlemen issued merry guffaws and returned to their pudding, though Professor Lyell laughed last and ate least.

  3

  We Meet the Reverend Malcolm Chadwick, a Man of Limber Frame and Nimble Mind, Before Whom Atheists Quake and Skeptics Grow Dyspeptic

  In the weeks that followed her accidental encounter with the theory of natural selection, Chloe performed her Down House duties with particular diligence, scrupulously nourishing, nurturing, and mucking up after Mr. Darwin’s menagerie—but she worked even harder on her days off. Every Tuesday afternoon she slipped into the village, entered the Queens Head Inn, and culled through discarded copies of the Evening Standard, eager to learn the latest exploits of the Percy Bysshe Shelley Society. According to Jasper Popplewell, the journalist who regularly reported on the Great God Contest, “the Almighty has been neither vanquished nor validated at Alastor Hall,” and the £10,000 remained unclaimed.

  Equally encouraging to Chloe was her discovery that, although the London-based administrator of the Shelley Prize refused to allow the common run of applicant to take his proof or disproof to Oxford (lest the Byssheans be subjected to the rants of fanatics and the ravings of cranks), that same worthy normally blessed any argument that turned on tangible artifacts—and what could be more tangible than a broad-tailed marine iguana or a slim-beaked warbler finch? In one especially arresting presentation, a version of the A
rgument from Miracles, a Northumberland bishop had paraded “a collection of discarded crutches and abandoned Bath chairs before the judges, graphic testaments to the Creator’s healing hand.” The petitioner did not prosper, the freethinking judges noting that the vast majority of prayers on behalf of the halt and the lame went unanswered. But what most struck Chloe was the hopeful bishop’s employment of physical props. A crutch was a truly vivid thing, though hardly more vivid than the egg-cracking bill of a Hood’s Isle mockingbird.

  In another notable albeit unsuccessful submission, an attempted “refutation of the Jehovah hypothesis,” a Chelmsford apothecary had taken Saint Anselm’s Ontological Proof—because one can conceive of a Perfect Being, such an entity necessarily exists, actualities being ipso facto superior to ideas—and turned it on its head. The apothecary had prepared a diagram, dense with mathematical formulae, allegedly demonstrating that “the only thing more astonishing than a universe created by a bona fide supernatural being would be a universe created by a nonexistent supernatural being.” Surely this chart, reasoned Chloe, though rendered in the boldest strokes and brightest colors, had not been more compelling than the arched carapace of a Charles Isle saddleback tortoise.

  Two days after Mr. Darwin acquired a new microscope for his barnacle studies, built especially for him from a French prototype, Chloe resolved to confront him with her plan, figuring that the instrument had put him in a good humor. She found him in his study, alternately smoking a cigarette and enlarging the latest object of his curiosity. “A fresh-water clam,” he explained, pointing to the microscope stage. “It arrived this morning from a Greenwich naturalist who shares my fascination with the means by which aquatic invertebrates are dispersed from their birth sites. He mailed me the clam along with a diving beetle to whose leg it was attached. Thanks to the offices of that insect, this clam may have traveled a full three miles from home, eventually reaching the bend in the creek from which my friend retrieved both vehicle and rider.”