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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

, or he may have bought them from Tahitians with whom he came into contact, or possibly from his shipmates. The fish represented nine species (there were one or two duplicates) and some were new to science, although Darwin did not know this until Leonard Jenyns described them in Part 4 of the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle. No other vertebrates appear to have been collected. A very few insects seem to have been taken using a sweep-net: all have been lost. His attention seems to have been

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

cannot be expected to occur.'22 Darwin had not adopted the evolutionary approach as he thrashed through the tree ferns and climbers in the Tahiti forests, but in understanding the way in which organisms were linked with their environments and commenting on the poverty of island biota he was beginning to arrange his observations around theoretical constructs that were compatible with it. The Beagle left Tahiti, blown by a strong sea breeze, at sunset on 26 November 1835. She later experienced

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

reefs around Tahiti. He was trying to find confirmation in the field of a theory he had already constructed - another type of comparison, in a way. Among Darwin's Beagle Geological Notes in the Cambridge University Library is a 23-page manuscript, apparently rather hastily written in his own hand. Entitled 'Coral Islands', it is likely that it was written between 3 and 21 December 1835 on board ship during the crossing from Tahiti to New Zealand. It is in this document that we see his first

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

Australia: The Great Princess of the South Darwin left the ship on 16 January, returning on the 27th, socializing a little in Sydney and visiting the King family home at Dunheved, inland from Sydney. (Philip Gidley King was a midshipman aboard the Beagle. He had been a good friend of Darwin, but left the ship at this point.) Darwin hired a couple of horses and a guide to take him inland. It was extremely hot and dry. The roads, he thought, were excellent, and there was a good deal of traffic

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

indistinguishable in the Falklands, Tierra del Fuego and (as he later found) the islands round the southern tip of Chile, the Australian environment was very distinctive. While resting with Darwin on the bank, we might also briefly re-examine the antlion incident. (It must have been written up some days after the event, when he had access to Kirby's four-volume work aboard the Beagle.) Although the note is brief, it is very perceptive: there is excellent detail; the behaviour of the larva in directing

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

Tasmania: A Geological Laboratory swam amongst the corals of Tahiti and developed the first outline of the reefs theory, which he was able to confirm at Cocos a few weeks later. The 'habit of comparison' allowed him to interpret what he saw in a coherent, structured way. Nonetheless, he was presented, in the amazing panorama of islands (and other places) which the Beagle put before him, with the raw materials of that comparison. Even as he was penning the somewhat self-critical letter to

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

chlorodon by Leonard Jenyns in The Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle volume on fish, which fed exclusively on coral. Darwin opened the intestines of several of these 'parrot-fishes' (the modern scientific name of one that he collected is Scarus prasiognathos), and found them distended with 'yellow calcareous sandy mud'.15 There were two species of these fish, both with strong bony jaws, both 'coloured a splendid bluish-green', one living in the lagoon, the other among the corals of the outer

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

of the robber-, or coconut-crab (modern scientific name, Birgus latro) Darwin is showing excellent powers of observation and attention to detail. He enriches his account with material from another observer and from a book he had available to him on the Beagle. There are traces of his usual comparative approach. Of special interest is that as much 203 [page

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

voyage, perhaps around the time he discussed the differences between the rodents he collected on the voyage with George Waterhouse, who wrote up the mammals' volume of The Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle. The original rats are alleged to have come ashore with the wreck of a ship from Mauritius. There is evidence that Darwin gave thought to the matter of the means of dispersal of the islands' biota while actually on the islands. He gave Professor Henslow the plants he collected on Cocos (about 20

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

'I am glad that we have visited these Islands': The Cocos (Keeling) Atoll Although he had glimpsed atolls from the mast-head, as the Beagle bowled her way across the Pacific, Darwin had not actually set foot on one (although he had seen reefs of other types in Tahiti) until Cocos. It provided an environment for him to test his ideas. His developing ideas can be traced to some extent in what may be called the Cocos Coral Manuscript.25 This begins with a neat cross-section (cross-sections and

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

Beagle had 'stood out of the lagoon': I am glad we have visited these Islands; such formations surely rank high amongst the wonderful objects of the world. It is not a wonder which at first strikes the eye of the body, but rather after reflection, the eye of reason. We feel surprised when travellers relate accounts of vast piles 6c [the] extent of some ancient ruins, but how insignificant are the greatest of these, when compared to the matter here accumulated by various small animals.29 Notes 1

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

own observations with those of others, for he makes extensive use of two volumes that were at his disposal on the Beagle: the Zoologie volume of LCD. Freycinet's Voyage autour du monde . .. 1817-1820 and Voyage a I'isle de France . . . par un officier de rot. Extracts from Darwin's opening remarks in his notes on the geology of Mauritius show how in his few days of fieldwork he had come to grips with the combined volcanic and coral structure of the island: Before describing the few facts I have

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

eminences. He saw evidence of extensive erosion: some of the volcanic forms were 'broken down'. He refers to 'a remnant of a great crater', describing how a 'wall or parapet' was very similar to those he had seen surmounting several of the craters in the Galapagos Islands; he adds, perhaps wistfully recalling the island he was not able to visit, a reference from Humboldt to a similar feature on Tenerife.7 In his chapter on the geology of St Helena, in Part 2 of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

A Rock and a Cinder: St Helena and Ascension thought at the time were formed underwater; and he reported investigations by another geologist which appeared to confirm this with the finding of organic material. It seemed that there had been a lake of some kind on the now dry island. After discussing this, Darwin ends his account of Ascension in the Voyage of the Beagle as follows: Anyhow, we may feel sure, that at some former epoch, the climate and productions of Ascension were very different

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

to the whole swell of the southern ocean, hence during the present boisterous time of year is very disagreeable far from safe.5 The Beagle, with a force 5 sou'wester blowing in the sails 'made sail on the starboard tack'. At 6.40 p.m. the vessel hove to, and the boat was taken up. By 7.00 p.m. the sails were filled again as the ship set course for the island of Sao Miguel (St Michael's, Darwin called it) some 80 nautical miles (150 km) to the south-east. Despite the slightly negative feel of some

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

The Last Island: Terceira, Azores due east of Monte Brasil. Darwin would have passed close to them on his ride to Praia, and the Beagle sailed not far from them on entering and leaving port. Elsewhere, describing the narrow valley in the centre of the island where he observed the steam-vents, he wrote that he thought the depression was due to 'the washing away ordinary degradation of the rocks' as much as subsidence. Darwin, now well-equipped with Lyellian ideas, was ready to accept the

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

Tahiti and Aituaki the sea-bed shelved steeply; the coral formations were the caps of isolated submarine mountains. As the Beagle sailed between Tahiti and New Zealand, the first full draft of the 'coral atoll theory' was prepared. Cocos, visited after Australia, provided a case-study. It was the first true atoll upon which he had set foot, and although he probably overestimated the rate of change in sea level, the study of the archipelago provided striking confirmation of his theory. Soundings

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

wrote: 'insects are very few in number'. The poverty of the vertebrate fauna of New Zealand made a particularly strong impression. This theme of islands as supporting a depauperate biota runs through much of his note-taking from the Beagle period. Ocean islands were a 'refuge for the destitute'; they had arisen out of the sea and all their tenants had arrived from elsewhere. Sometimes he speculated on the route: migrating birds and storms might constitute the link between South America and the

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

Conclusion: Islands, Inspiration and Ideas the Beagle north-west of St Jago that must have come from the African coast, away to the east. Possibly Darwin did not see the full significance of these observations while aboard, and indeed he uses the phrase 'centre of creation' for St Helena. But following his adoption of an evolutionary outlook, these facts could be conveniently slotted in. Later in life, Darwin, in correspondence with his friend Dr Joseph Hooker, agreed that the study of plant

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

Darwin's Other Islands 'being a dark reddish brown. Many had a white mark on the forehead a few had one on the lower jaw. All appeared to have a singular outline of forehead.' Here was a small, isolated, island population that had inherited the characteristics of the founder population. In each case Darwin was just a short step from an expression of evolutionary ideas, but while aboard the Beagle he did not quite get there. Perhaps a little surprising, in view of the reticence with which

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A2112 Book: Armstrong, Patrick. 2004. Darwin's other islands. London: Continuum. Text

into the development of his intellectual outlook as a whole. The Beagle voyage can be seen as an incomplete enterprise. Throughout it, as he moved from island to island, he was arranging his material around ideas that were to be important later. It was in the decades that followed his climbing into the stagecoach at Falmouth on the wet and windy night of 2 October 1836 that the pieces were tied together cohesively. Those 40 (or so) islands were 257 [page

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A161 Periodical contribution: Steinheimer, F. D. 2004. Charles Darwin's bird collection and ornithological knowledge during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, 1831-1836. Journal of Ornithology 145(4): 300-320, 4 figures (appendix [pp. 1-40]). Text Image PDF

fruitful was Darwin's visit to the Gal pagos Islands, where no proper collection-based survey of birds had ever taken place before the Beagle crew came ashore. Twenty-two new (sub-)species were among the birds which Darwin brought back to Britain. They were all described immediately by John Gould, who also, as discussed in Sulloway (1982a, 1982b), was the first to recognize the close relationship among the Gal pagos finches. Gould received Darwin's specimens on 4 January 1837 (see below), and

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A161 Periodical contribution: Steinheimer, F. D. 2004. Charles Darwin's bird collection and ornithological knowledge during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, 1831-1836. Journal of Ornithology 145(4): 300-320, 4 figures (appendix [pp. 1-40]). Text Image PDF

mentioned their behaviour, habitat or geographical range. Accordingly, the chapters on species of Charadriiformes in the Zool-ogy of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (Gould et al. 1841) are quite poor and contain very little data beyond the collecting localities. Furthermore, Darwin had immense problems in applying any sensible name to species of bird confined to America, such as Tinamidae,15 Furnariidae, Tyrannidae and Rhinocryptidae. A notebook entry from the Patagonian coast near Santa Cruz in April 1834

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A161 Periodical contribution: Steinheimer, F. D. 2004. Charles Darwin's bird collection and ornithological knowledge during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, 1831-1836. Journal of Ornithology 145(4): 300-320, 4 figures (appendix [pp. 1-40]). Text Image PDF

, the common turnstone Arenaria interpres as a plover of the genus Charadrius, and vice-versa. Darwin lacked any real interest in waders, and barely mentioned their behaviour, habitat or geographical range. Accordingly, the chapters on species of Charadriiformes in the Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (Gould et al. 1841) are quite poor and contain very little data beyond the collecting localities. Furthermore, Darwin had immense problems in applying any sensible name to species of bird

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