RECORD: Darwin, C. R. [1838-1839]. Notebook E: 139, 140, 165, 166, 167, 168 (excised pages). CUL-DAR208.53. Edited by John van Wyhe (The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Text prepared and edited by John van Wyhe 6.2025. RN1

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volume CUL-DAR208 contains notebook leaves excised by Darwin.

Notebook E: Transmutation. Text & image CUL-DAR124.-


139

then dropped it & was found alive. Stanleys Familiar History of Birds1 — several cases on record of stoats being carried (p. 121) & dropped having wounded the bird. p. 124 — Mr Willoughby2 found a dead lamb & hare by the side of Eagles nest, which shows power of carrying great weight p. 125. is said that Eagles bring rabbits & hares to the young ones to exercise them in killing them. "Sometimes it seems hares, rabbits, rats & not being sufficiently weakened by wounds get off from the young ones while they were amusing themselves with them and one day a rabbit escaped into a hole, where

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1 Edward Stanley, Familiar History of Birds, London 1838.

2 Francis Willughby. In the 1854 edition of Edward Stanley's Familiar History of Birds"… Mr. Willoughby. an excellent authority, mentions a nest which he saw in the woodlands, near the river Derwent, in the Peak of Derbyshire, some 150 years ago.… and by them a lamb and a hare, and three heath-poults.…"

140

the old Eagle could not find it. — The parent bird another day brought to her young ones the cub of a fox which after it had fought well & desperately bitten the young ones would in all probability have escaped" — if it had not been shot by a shepherd who was watching the scene. —

In Shiart Isld it is said, that an Eagle always procured its prey from another island. —

p. 175. 28 short eared owls were counted in a field where there was great swarm of mice. —

165

May 29th . — Henslow says that he has not the slightest doubt that Festuca vivapara is the same species with F. ovina & was rendered vivaparous by growing in height. — yet he has seen it propagated in a garden, which is case precisely analogous to the Canada onion mentioned in Hort. Transact. Aisa caespitosa become vivaparous on mountain & yet can be raised in gardens. — Poa alpina, though generally vivaparous sometimes seeds. There are endless curious facts about every part of plant producing buds, so that Turpin1 says each cell of plant is individual. — Most plants which propagate rapidly by buds, layers &c. &c. do not seed freely. — The periwinkle seldom produces seeds, because it is thought to require insects to impregnate it. — it is allied to Asclepia, where this is always the case according to Brown. —

1 Pierre-Jean-François Turpin, Organographie microscopique des végélaux. Sur l'origine du tissu cellulaire, Paris, 1829.

166

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Voyage of Adventure & Beagle.1

Vol. I. p. 306 Shells as well as plants of Juan Fernandez differ from American coast.

Vol. II Reference p. 251 about the drifting of animals on ice

— p. 643 — very curious table of all the castes from Stephenson at Lima.

The same numerical relation (both in species and subgenera) between the Crag & Touraine beds, the one with neighbouring & Arctic sea, & the other with neighbouring & Senegal in sea — is remarkable. — Again the resemblance between the Superga & Paris, numerically

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1 Robert FitzRoy, Narrative of Voyages of H.M.S. Adventure and Beagle, London, 1839.

167

the same with recent & yet almost wholly different, is same, as if Isthmus of Panama. — Those two cases highly improbable — yet I can see no other way of accounting for them. — Think over this — The Superga beds have many shells in common with Touraine & are not far distant, which as L. says is strong argument for their contemporariness. — How is this with the Eocene beds. — see Lyells1 tables —

Bennetts Wanderings2 Vol. II p. 155. By inference I imagine that there are Baboons in St. Thomas on W. coast of Africa.

1 Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. 3, London, 1833, Table II, pp. 389-393.

2 George Bennett, Wanderings in New South Wales, London, 1834.

168

Owen1 Linn. Soc. April 2d 1839.

The Lepidosiren. — Amblyrhyncus & Toxodon, all equally aberrant — the two former connecting classes like Toxodon in orders. — Fish & reptiles in former case — Reptiles & Birds & Mamm. in Amblyrhynchus — is not this right? —

June 18th . Eyton2 tells me that Yarrell3 knows of a Gull which has laid in domestication eggs of two shapes & colour — Eyton has observed same thing in Brent Goose

1 Richard Owen, "Description of the Lepidosiren annectens", Trans. Linn. Soc. London, vol. 18. 1841, p. 327; read 2 April 1839.

2 Thomas Campbell Eyton.

3 William Yarrell.


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Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

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