The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

RECORD: Anon. [1909.] A choice Darwinian story. [The Times?]. McGill-CA-OSLER0-P110[.129]. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Christine Chua and edited by John van Wyhe 8.2023. RN1

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McGill University. See the Introduction and catalogue to the J.C. Simpson collection by John van Wyhe.

This apocryphal anecdote has been repeated and published many times since at least 1904.

[1]

A choice Darwinian story was related by Mr. G. H. Roberts, M.P., at the City Buildings on Friday evening. Two boys, he said, decided to pay a trick on the scientist. Having caught a centipede, a butterfly, a grasshopper and a beetle, they took the centipede's body and glued on to it the beetle's head, the grasshopper's legs, and the butterfly's wings. Then they went to Darwin's house, and asked him if he could tell them what sort of insect their creation was. "Did it hum when you caught it?" asked the scientist. "Yes sir," replied the boys. "Then," came the retort, "it must be a 'humbug.'"

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