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A fly on the flower: From Hermann Müller, 23 October 1867
Summary
In March 1867, Hermann Müller, a young teacher of natural sciences at a provincial Realschule (a type of secondary school that emphasised the natural sciences) in Lippstadt in the Prussian province of Westphalia, sent Darwin two papers on the mosses of…
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- … depending on the size of the pollen eaten by each type of fly. It is amazing that Müller, writing in …
The "wicked book": Origin at 157
Summary
Origin is 157 years old. (Probably) the most famous book in science was published on 24 November 1859. To celebrate we have uploaded hundreds of new images of letters, bringing the total number you can look at here to over 9000 representing more than…
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- … book' . Closer and closer it held the poor fly in its embrace, until it ceased …
John Lubbock
Summary
John Lubbock was eight years old when the Darwins moved into the neighbouring property of Down House, Down, Kent; the total of one hundred and seventy surviving letters he went on to exchange with Darwin is a large number considering that the two men lived…
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- … and exchanged references (see for example the letters on fly pincers , the Report of the …
Plant or animal? (Or: Don’t try this at home!)
Summary
Darwin is famous for showing that humans are just another animal, but, in his later years in particular, his real passion was something even more ambitious: to show that there are no hard-and-fast boundaries between animals and plants. In 1875 Darwin…
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- … friends poked gentle fun at him, writing a poem from the fly’s perspective : I never …
Darwin's in letters, 1873: Animal or vegetable?
Summary
Having laboured for nearly five years on human evolution, sexual selection, and the expression of emotions, Darwin was able to devote 1873 almost exclusively to his beloved plants. He resumed work on the digestive powers of sundews and Venus fly traps, and…
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4.25 'Punch' 1877 re. Cambridge doctorate
Summary
< Back to Introduction Punch often ridiculed Darwin by showing him as a monkey or in other animalistic forms, but in 1877, when he at last received an honorary degree from Cambridge University, it paid its tribute to ‘wisdom’. ‘Punch to Dr. Darwin’…
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- … revelation, creatures of the night – owls and a bat – fly off; the bat holds a smoking censer in its …
Orchids
Summary
Why Orchids? Darwin wrote in his Autobiography, ‘During the summer of 1839, and, I believe, during the previous summer, I was led to attend to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of insects, from having come to the conclusion in my…
Darwin in letters, 1860: Answering critics
Summary
On 7 January 1860, John Murray published the second edition of Darwin’s Origin of species, printing off another 3000 copies to satisfy the demands of an audience that surprised both the publisher and the author. It wasn't long, however, before ‘the…
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- … attitude soon faded, however, when ‘the stones began to fly’. His ‘dearly beloved’ theory suffered a …
Insectivorous Plants
Summary
Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Plants that consume insects Darwin began his work with insectivorous plants in the mid 1860s, though his findings would not be published until 1875. In his autobiography Darwin reflected on the delay that…
Darwin’s reading notebooks
Summary
In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to read in Notebook C (Notebooks, pp. 319–28). In 1839, these lists were copied and continued in separate notebooks. The first of these reading notebooks (DAR 119…
From morphology to movement: observation and experiment
Summary
Darwin was a thoughtful observer of the natural world from an early age. Whether on a grand scale, as exemplified by his observations on geology, or a microscopic one, as shown by his early work on the eggs and larvae of tiny bryozoans, Darwin was…
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- … the nerve-like response of a leaf of Dionaea (Venus fly trap) when stimulated with an induction …
Darwin in letters, 1874: A turbulent year
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The year 1874 was one of consolidation, reflection, and turmoil for Darwin. He spent the early months working on second editions of Coral reefs and Descent of man; the rest of the year was mostly devoted to further research on insectivorous plants. A…
Dipsacus and Drosera: Frank’s favourite carnivores
Summary
In Autumn of 1875, Francis Darwin was busy researching aggregation in the tentacles of Drosera rotundifolia (F. Darwin 1876). This phenomenon occurs when coloured particles within either protoplasm or the fluid in the cell vacuole (the cell sap) cluster…
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- … experiments on Amanita (agaricus) muscaria (the fly agaric mushroom), from which Francis …
Fake Darwin: myths and misconceptions
Summary
Many myths have persisted about Darwin's life and work. Here are a few of the more pervasive ones, with full debunking below...
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- … Many myths have persisted about Darwin's life and work. Here are a few of the more pervasive ones, …
Darwin in letters, 1881: Old friends and new admirers
Summary
In May 1881, Darwin, one of the best-known celebrities in England if not the world, began writing about all the eminent men he had met. He embarked on this task, which formed an addition to his autobiography, because he had nothing else to do. He had…
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- … doubted because of the difficulty of training birds to fly as a body in the same direction. …
Darwin in letters, 1869: Forward on all fronts
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At the start of 1869, Darwin was hard at work making changes and additions for a fifth edition of Origin. He may have resented the interruption to his work on sexual selection and human evolution, but he spent forty-six days on the task. Much of the…
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- … sofa for a bit— after ½ an hour Tommy was caught & as the fly Father ordered was very long in …
Darwin in letters, 1875: Pulling strings
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‘I am getting sick of insectivorous plants’, Darwin confessed in January 1875. He had worked on the subject intermittently since 1859, and had been steadily engaged on a book manuscript for nine months; January also saw the conclusion of a bitter dispute…
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- … focusing on the digestive secretions of Dionaea (Venus fly trap), Drosera (sundew), and …
Review: The Origin of Species
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- by Asa Gray THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION (American Journal of Science and Arts, March, 1860) This book is already exciting much attention. Two American editions are announced, through which it will become familiar to many…
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- … is caused by the greater number in Paraguay of a certain fly, which lays its eggs in the navels of …
Satire of FitzRoy's Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, by John Clunies Ross. Transcription by Katharine Anderson
Summary
[f.146r Title page] Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle Supplement / to the 2nd 3rd and Appendix Volumes of the First / Edition Written / for and in the name of the Author of those / Volumes By J.C. Ross. / Sometime Master of a…
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- … space of navigable sea – they could not – from thence fly again to Mr Ross on learning which …