Cambridge University Library
Darwin's study of barnacles, begun in 1844, took him eight years to complete. The correspondence reveals how his interest in a species found during the Beagle voyage developed into an investigation of the comparative anatomy of other cirripedes and finally a comprehensive taxonomical study of the entire group. Despite struggling with a recurrent illness, he continued to write on geologicy, and published notes on the use of microscopes. Three more children, Elizabeth, Francis, and Leonard, were born during this period, but the death of Darwin's father in 1848 left the family well-provided for.
Read more
|
Desmodium gyrans: day and night. Original drawings by G. H. Darwin for Charles Darwin’s Movement in plants, p. 358, fig. 149. By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.
‘My heart & soul care for worms & nothing else in this world,’ Darwin wrote to his old Shrewsbury friend Henry Johnson on 14 November 1880. Darwin became fully devoted to earthworms in the spring of the year, just after finishing the manuscript of Movement in plants, his most ambitious botanical book. Both projects explored the complexities of movement, forms of sensitivity, and the ability of organisms to adapt to varying conditions. Read more
|
Honeycombs are natural engineering marvels, using the least possible amount of wax to provide the greatest amount of storage space, with the greatest possible structural stability. Darwin recognised that explaining the evolution of the honey-bee’s comb-building abilities was essential if his theory of natural selection was to be taken seriously, and in the 1850s he carried out his own experiments at his home at Down House in Kent, and exchanged many letters on the subject. One correspondent even drew an ingenious analogy with a plum pie - you can try this at home!
Read more
|