The voyage of the Beagle

What a pleasure it is to re-read Charles Darwin’s Researches* with resources before me that I had not had when I read it many years ago! –a good map of South America so that I can follow his travels, and a book of the birds of southern South America. Darwin usually mentioned animals by their Latin names, and if he gave a common name it was usually in Spanish or Portuguese. Yet, even when the taxonomy has changed, as is often the case after well more than a century and a half, I can always find the bird’s identity, and an illustration. So, too, for the mammals. Yet one of the best resources now available that was not when I first read it is the on-line resources, including the full text and illustrations of all of Darwin’s works. This includes the supplements to his original work, and, most importantly the Zoology with its colour plates of the animals.

Darwin’s first edition of the Voyage of the Beagle was published in 1836. The second, 1845 edition is the one to read because (1) he had time to reflect upon evolution and the mechanism of it (natural selection), and he therefore added a number of comments that presaged his 1859 Origin of the Species and show how his ideas were germinating well before he reached the Galapagos, especially in Argentina and Chile; and (2) the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle was published in five parts by eminent scientific authorities for each group: 1 Fossil Mammalia by R. Owen (with a geological introduction by Darwin), 2 Mammalia by G. R. Waterhouse (with a geographical indroduction and notes on the habits and ranges of each species by Darwin), 3 Birds by J. Gould and G. R. Gray, 4. Fish by L. Jenyns, and 5 Reptiles [which included Amphibia] by T. Bell.

Since the five Zoology parts were published between from 1838 to 1843, in producing the 1845 edition of his Researches, Darwin could name each species and give details about its relationship to other species, living and extinct. This of course enabled a much fuller understanding of how species vary in time and space.

The Zoology contains beautiful colour plates that are artitistically, historically and taxonomically important. Since all of Darwin’s works are on-line (http://darwin-online.org.uk/contents.html), while reading his Researches, if you have a computer beside you, you can look up the pictures of animals he mentions.

The first version of Darwin’s Researches that I read was a modern Penguin Classics edition, a gift from a naïve colleague, that had been severely abridged by an editor trained in liberal arts, who had no appreciation for the science. I am using both meanings of “appreciation” here: she had neither understanding nor interest in Darwin’s description of the natural world. To make a “story” that to her was interesting and moderately succinct, she cut out large portions of the text, and these were invariably those describing flora, fauna, and geology. I regret that I gave my copy away in a book exchange, instead of burning it.

*Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the world. London: John Murray. 2d edition, 1845. Often abbreviated simply as The voyage of the Beagle.