Vol 25, no 3, October - The Linnean Society of London
Vol 25, no 3, October - The Linnean Society of London
Vol 25, no 3, October - The Linnean Society of London
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NEWSLETTER AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON<br />
VOLUME <strong>25</strong> • NUMBER 3 • OCTOBER 2009
THE LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON<br />
Registered Charity Number 220509<br />
Burlington House, Piccadilly, <strong>London</strong> W1J 0BF<br />
Tel. (+44) (0)20 7434 4479; Fax: (+44) (0)20 7287 9364<br />
e-mail: info@linnean.org; internet: www.linnean.org<br />
President Secretaries Council<br />
Dr Vaughan Southgate BOTANICAL <strong>The</strong> Officers and<br />
Dr Sandra D Knapp<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong> Pieter Baas<br />
Vice-Presidents<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong> Richard Bateman<br />
Dr Mike Fay ZOOLOGICAL Dr Andy Brown<br />
Dr Sandra D Knapp Dr Malcolm Scoble Dr John David<br />
Dr Keith Maybury<br />
Dr Terry Langford<br />
Dr Malcolm Scoble EDITORIAL Pr<strong>of</strong> Ge<strong>of</strong>f Moore<br />
Dr John R Edmondson<br />
Dr Sylvia Phillips<br />
Treasurer<br />
Mr Terence Preston<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Gren Ll Lucas OBE COLLECTIONS Dr Max Telford<br />
Mrs Susan Gove<br />
Dr Mark Watson<br />
Dr David Williams<br />
Executive Secretary Librarian Pr<strong>of</strong> Patricia Willmer<br />
Dr Ruth Temple<br />
Mrs Lynda Brooks<br />
Conservator<br />
Financial Controller/Membership Assistant Librarian Ms Janet Ashdown<br />
Mr Priya Nithianandan<br />
Mr Ben Sherwood<br />
Special Publications<br />
Building and Office Manager Ho<strong>no</strong>rary Archivist and Education Manager<br />
Ms Victoria Smith Ms Gina Douglas Ms Leonie Berwick<br />
Communications Manager Office Assistant Conservation Assistant<br />
Ms Claire Inman Mrs Catherine Tanner Ms Lucy Gosnay<br />
THE LINNEAN<br />
Newsletter and Proceedings<br />
<strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong><br />
ISSN 0950-1096<br />
Edited by Brian G Gardiner<br />
Editorial .............................................................................................................. 1<br />
<strong>Society</strong> News ............................................................................................................ 1<br />
Library .............................................................................................................. 4<br />
Book Review ............................................................................................................ 9<br />
Charles Darwin, Live at the <strong>Linnean</strong>! (extra event) ............................................... 10<br />
In the footsteps <strong>of</strong> Charles Darwin on Tierra del Fuego ........................................ 11<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shadow <strong>of</strong> Perfection ...................................................................................... 27<br />
Darwin’s Lichens .................................................................................................... 36<br />
Obituaries ............................................................................................................ 52<br />
Minutes <strong>of</strong> the 221st Anniversary Meeting ............................................................ 59<br />
Taxo<strong>no</strong>my and Biodiversity Lectures ..................................................................... 67
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 1<br />
Editorial<br />
This issue marks the 150 th anniversary <strong>of</strong> the publication <strong>of</strong> the On the Origin <strong>of</strong><br />
Species (24 th November) and contains three articles, two <strong>of</strong> which were commissioned.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first article gives a graphic account <strong>of</strong> Darwin and his encounters with the<br />
hunter-gathering people <strong>of</strong> eastern Tierra del Fuego. Apparently he could <strong>no</strong>t believe<br />
that such wretched savages belonged to the human race! Later he <strong>no</strong>ted that their<br />
language was inarticulate “according to our <strong>no</strong>tions” and describes their wigwams as<br />
being the size <strong>of</strong> a haycock, thatched on one side and used only for a few days since<br />
they were <strong>no</strong>madic hunter-gatherers, compelled to wander from spot to spot. <strong>The</strong><br />
article concludes with a short <strong>no</strong>te on the differences between Bates’ and Darwin’s<br />
approach to the human dimensions <strong>of</strong> their experiences in South America.<br />
<strong>The</strong> article on Darwin’s lichens recounts how they came to light and then sets<br />
them in their correct historical and geographical perspective (Acharius – Linnaeus’<br />
last student recorded 906 species in 43 years). Darwin, with his collection <strong>of</strong> lichens,<br />
proved to be the catalyst <strong>of</strong> Southern Hemisphere Liche<strong>no</strong>logy, <strong>no</strong>t only collecting<br />
from Tierra del Fuego but also from the rain forests <strong>of</strong> Chiloé and the Cho<strong>no</strong>s<br />
archipelago. Darwin’s lichens were sent to Kew where Hooker made use <strong>of</strong> them in<br />
his Flora Antarctica. Finally, Darwin also collected three new lichen species on the<br />
Galapagos.<br />
<strong>The</strong> third article points out that the theory <strong>of</strong> evolution by Natural Selection is the<br />
keystone <strong>of</strong> modern life sciences. It later traces the impact Darwin had on the fixity <strong>of</strong><br />
species, an idea which goes back to Linnaeus himself who used it in his search for a<br />
‘Natual Classification’. It then deals with the problem <strong>of</strong> perfection in living organisms<br />
and the implication <strong>of</strong> stasis. From there it confronts the struggle for existence and the<br />
relationship between ge<strong>no</strong>type and phe<strong>no</strong>type, <strong>no</strong>t terms used by Darwin although he<br />
was well aware <strong>of</strong> the importance Natural Selection had for/on ontogeny. <strong>The</strong> article<br />
concludes with Paley’s watch and earthworm activity.<br />
This issue also contains the Minutes <strong>of</strong> the Anniversary Meeting 2009 plus, as<br />
usual, news from the Executive Secretary and the Library. In addition there are three<br />
obituaries <strong>of</strong> Fellows who have died recently and a review <strong>of</strong> the English translation<br />
<strong>of</strong> Musa Cliffortiana – Clifford’s Banana plant. I have to remind you that this is the<br />
last issue <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong> <strong>Linnean</strong> for this year. Next year (and thereafter) there will be only<br />
two issues – in March and September – but Pulse will be circulated in the gaps.<br />
BRIAN GARDINER<br />
Editor<br />
<strong>Society</strong> News<br />
By the time this issue <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong> <strong>Linnean</strong> is published, we will be almost at the end <strong>of</strong><br />
Darwin 200! We will, however, still have one <strong>of</strong> the most significant dates within the<br />
year to look forward to. November 24 th 2009 marks the 150 th anniversary <strong>of</strong> the<br />
publication <strong>of</strong> On the Origin <strong>of</strong> Species, a volume that challenged and changed many<br />
people’s thinking and continues to create debate today!
2<br />
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
I’m writing this, having just turned over the calendar; it’s September 1 st – a year to<br />
the day since I took up the role <strong>of</strong> Executive Secretary. This too has been a time <strong>of</strong><br />
challenge and change (and much enjoyment!), and this provides a further opportunity<br />
to say thank you for everyone’s support and forbearance in this first year! <strong>The</strong> last<br />
twelve months have been a time <strong>of</strong> personal change – including a house move, and a<br />
wedding! – and the <strong>Society</strong>’s meetings programme, particularly over the last 6 months<br />
has focused on the many challenges and changes affecting science, scientists and us all.<br />
In April, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Pr<strong>of</strong>essor John Beddington<br />
gave the Annual Biodiversity Policy Lecture, “Biodiversity in a Changing World”<br />
highlighting the importance <strong>of</strong> understanding biodiversity in developing policies to<br />
meet the many global challenges we face. Our joint meeting with the World Land<br />
Trust “<strong>The</strong> Great Ape Debate” focused on how to best ensure the survival <strong>of</strong> Orangutans<br />
– rehabilitation and reintroduction or preservation <strong>of</strong> natural habitat? This meeting<br />
was “live-streamed” from our website enabling many who could <strong>no</strong>t attend in <strong>London</strong><br />
to view the proceedings.<br />
Our meetings in May continued the theme <strong>of</strong> change and challenge as Pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />
Janet Browne reflected on “Two Hundred Years <strong>of</strong> Evolution” as part <strong>of</strong> the Burlington<br />
House Lecture Series (see p68 for information about the next lecture), and in a meeting<br />
organised by Dr Sandra Knapp, “<strong>The</strong> Future <strong>of</strong> Plant Genetic Resources”, in ho<strong>no</strong>ur<br />
<strong>of</strong> Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Jack Hawkes, PPLS, a programme <strong>of</strong> international speakers reflected on<br />
the critical importance <strong>of</strong> genetic resources to a growing human population. In June,<br />
the Earl <strong>of</strong> Selborne reviewed the House <strong>of</strong> Lords Reports on Systematics and<br />
Taxo<strong>no</strong>my produced over the last decade, highlighting the continuing challenges facing<br />
<strong>The</strong> President and his wife with the bride and (left) Linnaea<br />
borealis painted on her wedding dress.
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 3<br />
these fields, and challenging the taxo<strong>no</strong>mic and systematic communities to work for<br />
positive change. Patricia Wiltshire reflected on the significant role <strong>of</strong> Forensic Ecology<br />
in contributing to criminal investigation and in a two-day meeting with the Royal<br />
<strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, organised by Pr<strong>of</strong>essor David Molyneux<br />
and Dr Vaughan Southgate, speakers reflected on the issues facing the future<br />
development <strong>of</strong> policies and their relevance in the area <strong>of</strong> biodiversity, infection and<br />
global health.<br />
It was a great delight to see so many assembled on July 3 rd to celebrate the life <strong>of</strong><br />
John Marsden, who brought such significant and dynamic change to the <strong>Linnean</strong><br />
<strong>Society</strong>! Our Conversazione on July 9 th was an opportunity to celebrate further<br />
in<strong>no</strong>vation within the <strong>Society</strong> with the launch <strong>of</strong> the new Virtual Tour; this can be<br />
downloaded from the homepage <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Society</strong>’s website.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Virtual Tour, the digitisation <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> Collections and our meetings<br />
programme all serve to increase the accessibility <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Society</strong> and to underline its<br />
important role as a <strong>Society</strong> steeped in tradition, but with a significant contribution to<br />
make to contemporary science, debate and discussion during these times <strong>of</strong> change<br />
and challenge. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Society</strong>’s Fellows constitute a very large body <strong>of</strong> experts within<br />
the broad field <strong>of</strong> Natural History which Council feels could have a very significant<br />
impact on future developments in the Biological world. Would you be prepared to<br />
share your expertise and encourage others to get involved? If so, please complete the<br />
Fellows Survey enclosed with this issue and help us to meet the challenges!<br />
RUTH TEMPLE<br />
Executive Secretary<br />
Call for Nominations<br />
for Medals and Awards 2010<br />
Nominations are <strong>no</strong>w sought for the <strong>Society</strong>’s Medals and Prizes to be awarded in<br />
2010. <strong>The</strong>se are the <strong>Linnean</strong> Medal for Botany, the <strong>Linnean</strong> Medal for Zoology,<br />
the Darwin-Wallace Medal, the Bicentenary Medal (to be awarded to a Botanist<br />
in 2010), the HH Bloomer Award (to be awarded to a Zoologist in 2010), the Irene<br />
Manton Prize and the Jill Smythies Award.<br />
If you would like to <strong>no</strong>minate an individual for either <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> Medals, the<br />
Bicentenary Medal or the HH Bloomer Award, please forward their details and the<br />
reasons for their <strong>no</strong>mination (<strong>no</strong> more than 1 side <strong>of</strong> A4) with names and confirmation<br />
<strong>of</strong> the proposer and a seconder to the Executive Secretary by 31 st December 2009.<br />
<strong>The</strong> proposer and seconder must both be Fellows <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong>.<br />
(<strong>The</strong> proposer and seconder may submit electronic signatures/verification via e-mail<br />
to the Executive Secretary.)<br />
If you would like to <strong>no</strong>minate an individual for either the Irene Manton Prize or the<br />
Jill Smythies Award, please see the <strong>Society</strong>’s website for more detailed guidelines<br />
and/or <strong>no</strong>mination forms http://www.linnean.org/index.php?id=330.
4<br />
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
Library<br />
I am delighted to report that our bid to the Wellcome Trust, for funding to catalogue<br />
the correspondence <strong>of</strong> Sir James Edward Smith, was successful. As a consequence, a<br />
lot <strong>of</strong> our time and energy over the past few months has gone into planning for the<br />
start <strong>of</strong> the project. <strong>The</strong> advertisement has gone out for an Archivist to work here parttime<br />
for nine months and we hope to have the successful candidate in post by mid- to<br />
late <strong>October</strong>. Cataloguing <strong>of</strong> the letters will be the first stage in making this material<br />
much more accessible and links will be created from the catalogue records to other<br />
resources, such as the biographical and biological content already available in databases<br />
created for the Linnaean and Smithian biological collections. Once the cataloguing is<br />
completed, we shall be looking for funding for the conservation and eventual digitisation<br />
<strong>of</strong> the letters.<br />
<strong>The</strong> digitisation <strong>of</strong> the Linnaean insect collection has <strong>no</strong>w been completed and the<br />
last <strong>of</strong> the specimens were returned to the <strong>Society</strong> in July. It is hoped that the images<br />
will go up online later this year after they have been checked and all the relevant data<br />
has been attached.<br />
During the summer, we became concerned about changes in the appearance <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Collier portrait <strong>of</strong> Charles Darwin, which hangs in the Meeting Room. <strong>The</strong> canvas<br />
seemed to have developed some gentle undulations. We consulted a picture conservator<br />
who recommended that the canvas needed re-lining and that the work should be carried<br />
out without too much delay. We agonised over losing Darwin during his anniversary<br />
year, but it was decided that the work could <strong>no</strong>t wait. <strong>The</strong> portrait has had to be<br />
removed to the conservator’s studio and some <strong>of</strong> you will have seen the forlorn empty<br />
frame hanging in the Meeting Room. We expect that the work will be completed and<br />
Darwin will be back in his rightful place by mid-<strong>October</strong>.<br />
Several other items from the <strong>Society</strong>’s collections have also been on the move<br />
recently. <strong>The</strong> Lincecum letter that was on loan to the Darwin exhibition at the Natural<br />
History Museum was safely returned to us in April when the exhibition closed. <strong>The</strong><br />
focus then switched to items associated with Robert Brown, President <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Society</strong><br />
from 1849-1853. Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Cutler transported Robert Brown’s microscope to Kew in<br />
order to re-create the experiment which resulted in the discovery <strong>of</strong> Brownean<br />
Movement. <strong>The</strong> experiment was filmed and formed part <strong>of</strong> the programme <strong>The</strong> Cell<br />
which was broadcast in August. <strong>The</strong> Sedgwick Museum <strong>of</strong> Earth Sciences in Cambridge<br />
has borrowed Brown’s seal for the exhibition Darwin the Geologist which opened at<br />
the beginning <strong>of</strong> July.<br />
Requests for tours <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Society</strong>’s rooms and collections are on the increase. We<br />
have given tours to the usual summer school groups from Michigan, Harvard, Georgia<br />
and Maryland and we have also hosted visits from the Anglo-Swedish Group, the<br />
Stanmore Strollers, Kensington and Chelsea National Trust Group, the <strong>London</strong><br />
Committee <strong>of</strong> the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Friends <strong>of</strong> Sydney Botanic Gardens, the<br />
British Association <strong>of</strong> Paper Historians and library staff from the Royal <strong>Society</strong>, the<br />
<strong>London</strong> Library and Kings College Special Collections.<br />
Members <strong>of</strong> the Library staff have recently attended two excellent seminars at the<br />
Royal <strong>Society</strong>; one examining the interpretation <strong>of</strong> museum exhibits and displays and
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 5<br />
the other entitled <strong>The</strong> changing face <strong>of</strong> learned and pr<strong>of</strong>essional societies’ libraries.<br />
Our volunteers continue to do sterling work for us. <strong>The</strong> cataloguing backlog has<br />
been dealt with, thanks to Lucy and Pia. Lucy has <strong>no</strong>w joined Janet to work on cleaning<br />
the Smith herbarium specimens and Pia is concentrating on adding details <strong>of</strong> early<br />
20 th century Fellows to the database. John Sellick has completed the transcribing <strong>of</strong><br />
the large Swainson and MacLeay correspondence collections and has <strong>no</strong>w started<br />
work on some smaller collections. Alan Brafield is about to start on sorting and listing<br />
a collection <strong>of</strong> material on John Hooper and his bat-ringing research.<br />
LYNDA BROOKS<br />
Librarian<br />
Donations March - August 2009<br />
Dr José Antonio Amaya. Amaya, J.A. Mutis, apóstol de Linneo: historia de la botánica<br />
en el virrenato de la Nueva Granada, 1760-1783. 2 vols. Bogotà: Instituto Colombia<strong>no</strong><br />
de Antropologia e Historia, 2005. ISBN 9588181321.<br />
Janet Ashdown. Lyle, T. and Wheeler, S. <strong>The</strong> wildlife <strong>of</strong> the Mudchute. 35p. <strong>London</strong>:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Mudchute Association, 1983.<br />
David Atty. Atty, D.B. Coleoptera <strong>of</strong> Gloucestershire. 136p. Cheltenham: <strong>The</strong> author,<br />
1983.<br />
Dr Halina Bednarek-Ochyra. Bednarek-Ochyra, H. [et al]. <strong>The</strong> liverwort flora <strong>of</strong><br />
Antarctica. 236p. Krakow: Polish Academy <strong>of</strong> Sciencs, Institute <strong>of</strong> Botany, 2000.<br />
ISBN8385444742.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor R.J. Berry. Berry, R.J. and Noble, T.A. [eds]. Darwin, Creation and the<br />
Fall. 208p. Nottingham: Apollos, 2009. ISBN 9781844743810.<br />
Dr Heather A. Binney. Battarbee, R.W. and Binney, H.A. [eds]. Natural climate<br />
variability and global warming: a holocene perspective. 276p. Chichester: Wiley-<br />
Blackwell, 2008. ISBN 9781405159050.<br />
Anders Björck. Franklin, A. and Ullhagen, B. Isblommor. 106p. Växjö: Artea, 2008.<br />
ISBN 9789185527175.<br />
Botanical <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> the British Isles. Murphy, R.J. Fumitories <strong>of</strong> Britain and Ireland.<br />
121p. <strong>London</strong>: Botanical <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> the British Isles, 2009. BSBI handbook <strong>no</strong>.12.<br />
ISBN 9780901158406.<br />
Bristol Cultural Development Partnership. Padel, R. A voyage round Charles<br />
Darwin. 40p. Bristol: Bristol Cultural Development Partnership, 2008.<br />
Kelly, A. and Kelly, M. [eds]. Darwin: for the love <strong>of</strong> science. <strong>25</strong>0p. Bristol: Bristol<br />
Cultural Development Partnership, 2009. ISBN 9780955074226.<br />
Jeff D. Bull. Attenborough, D. <strong>The</strong> first Eden: the mediterranean world and man.<br />
240p. <strong>London</strong>: Collins/BBC Books, 1987. ISBN 0002198271.<br />
Margaret Campbell. Campbell, M. <strong>The</strong> tree <strong>of</strong> life. 229p. Hobart: [s.n.], 2009. ISBN<br />
1876261528.<br />
Eric J. Clement. Poland, J. and Clement, E.J. <strong>The</strong> vegetative key to the British flora:<br />
a new approach to naming British vascular plants based on vegetative characteristics.<br />
526p. Southampton: John Poland, 2009. ISBN 9780956014405.
6<br />
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
Kevin Collins, Cathy Collins and Alex George. Collins, Kevin, Collins Kathy and<br />
George, Alex. Banksias. 376p. Melbourne: Bloomings Books, 2008. ISBN<br />
9781876473686.<br />
Joan Cramphorn. Cramphorn, J. A guide to the classification and distribution <strong>of</strong><br />
living fishes frequenting fresh and brackish waters. 17p. <strong>London</strong>: <strong>The</strong> author, 2008.<br />
Hui, Tam Hoek. <strong>The</strong> Borneo suckers: revision <strong>of</strong> the Torrent Loaches <strong>of</strong> Borneo<br />
(Balitoridae, Gastromyzon, Neogastromyzon). 245p. Kota Kinabalu: Natural History<br />
Publications (Borneo), 2006. ISBN 9838121053.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Giovanni Crist<strong>of</strong>olini. Crist<strong>of</strong>olini, G. and Managlia, A. Il giardi<strong>no</strong> di<br />
Darwin: l’evoluzione delle piante = Darwin’s garden: the evolution <strong>of</strong> plants. 239p.<br />
Tori<strong>no</strong>: Umberto Allemandi & Co., 2009. ISBN 9788842217411.<br />
Helga Crouch. Crouch, H. Drawn to nature. 38p. [<strong>London</strong>: Jonathan Cooper, Park<br />
Walk Gallery], 2008.<br />
David Donaldson. Donaldson, D. “A really good gardener”: Thomas Corbett, head<br />
gardener at Pencarrow (1837-1848). 30p. [s.l: s.n, s.d]. Pencarrow occasional paper<br />
<strong>no</strong>.4.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Desmond Do<strong>no</strong>van. Bizikov, V.A. <strong>The</strong> shell in vampyropoda (cephalopoda):<br />
morphology, functional role and evolution. 88p. Moscow: Ruthenica, 2004. ISBN<br />
5873171823.<br />
Ragg, Lonsdale. Some <strong>of</strong> my tree friends. 31p. <strong>London</strong>: De La More Press, [s.d.].<br />
Gina Douglas. Du Chatenet, G. Faune et flore de Martinique. 64 p. Paris : Editions<br />
Gallimard, 1998. ISBN 2070514668.<br />
Pouillot, G. Apiculture en Loiret. 168p. Gien: Le Cercle de Cartophiles du Loiret,<br />
2006. ISBN 2951761732.<br />
Seth-Smith, D. Adventures with the zoo man. 224p. <strong>London</strong>: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons<br />
Ltd., 1937.<br />
Dr John Edmondson. Dann, P. One for the pot: a small book about tea. [53]p. <strong>London</strong>:<br />
Elm Tree Books, 1985. ISBN 0241116910.<br />
Dr Brent Elliott. Stove, D.C. Darwinian fairytales: selfish genes, errors <strong>of</strong> heredity,<br />
and other fables <strong>of</strong> evolution. 345p. New York: Encounter Books, 2007. ISBN<br />
1594031401.<br />
Joel T. Fry. Dion, M. Travels <strong>of</strong> William Bartram reconsidered. 111p. Philadelphia,<br />
PA: Bartram’s Garden, 2008. ISBN 9780615<strong>25</strong>7488.<br />
Jeanette Fryer. Fryer, J. and Hylmö, B. Cotoneasters: a comprehensive guide to<br />
shrubs for flowers, fruit and foliage. 344p. Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2009. ISBN<br />
9780881929270.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Brian Gardiner. De Rijke, V. Duck. 191p. <strong>London</strong>: Reaktion Books, 2008.<br />
ISBN 9781861893505.<br />
Dr A.C. Hamilton. Hamilton, A.[ed.]. Medicinal plants in conservation and<br />
development: case studies and lessons learnt. 84p. Salisbury: Plantlife International,<br />
2008. ISBN 9781904749158.<br />
Hamilton, A. and Hamilton, P. Plant resource conservation.[In Chinese.] 312p. 2008.<br />
ISBN 9787802098763.
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 7<br />
Dr Melissa Hardie. Dare, D. and Hardie, M. A passion for nature: 19 th century<br />
naturalism in the circle <strong>of</strong> Charles Alexander Johns. 275p. Penzance: Patten Press<br />
and Jamieson Library, 2008. ISBN 9781872229584.<br />
Dr S.M. Haslam. Haslam, S.M. <strong>The</strong> reed: Phragmites australis (CAV.) Trin. ex Steud.<br />
28p. Norwich: British Reed Growers Association, 2009.<br />
Haslam, S.M. <strong>The</strong> riverscape: and the river. 404p. Cambridge: C.U.P., 2008. ISBN<br />
9780521839785.<br />
J.D.M.H. Henderson. Gould, J.L. and Gould, C.G. [eds]. Life at the edge. 162p. New<br />
York: W.H. Freeman, 1989. ISBN 0716720116.<br />
Dr J.M.I. Klaver. Klaver, J.M.I. European scientific expeditions to the Arab world,<br />
1761-1881. <strong>25</strong>5p. Oxford: OUP, 2009. ISBN 9780199568895.<br />
Dr Sandra Knapp. McNulty, E. Missouri Botanical Garden: green for 150 years,<br />
1859-2009. 214p. St Louis: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2009. ISBN 9780615249667.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Dr H.W. Lack. Lack, H.W. Franz Bauer: the painted record <strong>of</strong> nature.<br />
130p. Wien: Verlag des Naturhistorischen Museums, 2008. ISBN 9783902421302.<br />
Lack, H.W. Alexander von Humboldt and the botanical exploration <strong>of</strong> the Americas.<br />
278p. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2009. ISBN 9783791341422.<br />
Dr Hugh Loxdale Thompson, D’Arcy W. A bibliography <strong>of</strong> Protozoa, sponges ,<br />
coelenterata and worms including also the polyzoa, brachiopoda and tunicata for the<br />
years 1861-1883. 284p. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1885.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Gren Lucas. Lindley, J. <strong>The</strong> vegetable kingdom ... 3rd ed. 908p. <strong>London</strong>:<br />
Bradbury & Evans, 1853.<br />
Loudon, J.C. An encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> plants … 1159p. <strong>London</strong>: Longman, Rees, Orme<br />
Brown & Green, 1829.<br />
Iain McCalman. McCalman, I. and Erskine, N. [eds]. In the wake <strong>of</strong> the Beagle:<br />
science in the southern oceans from the age <strong>of</strong> Darwin. 192p. Sydney: University <strong>of</strong><br />
New South Wales Press, 2009. ISBN 9781921410949.<br />
James McCarthy. McCarthy, J. Monkey puzzle man : Archibald Menzies, plant hunter.<br />
223p. Dunbeath: Whittles Publishing, 2008. ISBN 9781904445616.<br />
Michael McCarthy. McCarthy, M. Say goodbye to the cuckoo. 243p. <strong>London</strong>: John<br />
Murray, 2009. ISBN 9781848540639.<br />
James MacEwan. Amory, Michael Heathcoat. <strong>The</strong> oaks <strong>of</strong> Chevithorne Barton. 219p.<br />
<strong>London</strong> : Adelphi Publishers, 2009. ISBN 9780956238702.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Conley McMullen. McMullen, C. Flowering plants <strong>of</strong> the Galápagos.<br />
370p. Ithaca, NY: Comstock Publishing, 1999. ISBN 9780801486210.<br />
Richard Milner. Milner, R. Darwin’s universe: evolution from A-Z. 488p. Berkeley,<br />
Calif.: University <strong>of</strong> California Press, 2009. ISBN 9780520243767.<br />
Dr Masahiko Miyata. Natural History Museum and Institute, Chiba. Carl von Linné<br />
as the root <strong>of</strong> natural history. 297p. Tokyo: Bun-ichi Sogo Shuppan Co. Ltd., 2008.<br />
ISBN 9784829901298.<br />
Dr Staffan Müller-Wille. Müller-Wille, S. and Rheinberger, H.-J. [eds]. Heredity<br />
produced: at the crossroads <strong>of</strong> biology, politics and culture, 1500-1870. 496p.
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Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007. ISBN 9780262134767.<br />
Dr E.C. Nelson. Drake, J. Wood & Ingram: a Huntingdonshire nursery, 1742-1950.<br />
260p. Huntingdon: Cambridgeshire Gardens Trust, 2008. ISBN 9780953854219.<br />
Green, P. Flora <strong>of</strong> County Waterford. 401p. Dublin: National Botanic Gardens <strong>of</strong><br />
Ireland, 2008. ISBN 978075776078.<br />
Miskerry, C. [ed.]. Chatham Islands: heritage and conservation. 205p. Christchurch,<br />
NZ: University <strong>of</strong> Canterbury, 2008. ISBN 9781877<strong>25</strong>7780.<br />
Dr Henry Noltie. Noltie, H.J. Raffles’ ark redrawn: natural history drawings from<br />
the collection <strong>of</strong> Sir Thomas Raffles. 180p. <strong>London</strong>: <strong>The</strong> British Library and RBG<br />
Edinburgh, 2009. ISBN 9780712350846.<br />
Dr Ryszard Ochyra. Bednarek-Ochyra, H. A taxo<strong>no</strong>mic mo<strong>no</strong>graph <strong>of</strong> the moss genus<br />
Codriophorous P. Beauv. (Grimmiaceae). 276p. Krakov: Polish Academy <strong>of</strong> Sciences,<br />
Institute <strong>of</strong> Botany, 2006. ISBN 8389648407.<br />
Alexandra Papdakis. Stuppy, W. and Kessler, R. Fruit: edible, inedible, incredible.<br />
264p. <strong>London</strong>: Papadakis, 2008. ISBN 9781901092745.<br />
D.A. Pearman. Pearman, D.A. [et al]. <strong>The</strong> flora <strong>of</strong> Rum: an Atlantic island reserve.<br />
480p. Cornwall: [<strong>The</strong> authors], 2008. ISBN 9780953811137.<br />
Dr K. Sankara Rao. Sankara Rao, K. Flowering plants <strong>of</strong> Indian Institute <strong>of</strong> Science:<br />
a field guide. 2 vols. Bangalore: Indian Institute <strong>of</strong> Science, 2009.<br />
Dr Elaine Robson. 50 years <strong>of</strong> zoological research: reflection and insights: 50 th<br />
anniversary conference <strong>of</strong> the Zoological <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> Southern Africa. 94p. [s.l.]:<br />
Zoological <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> Southern Africa, 2009.<br />
Dr Frank Ryan. Ryan, F. Virolution. 390p. <strong>London</strong>: Collins, 2009. ISBN<br />
9780007315123.<br />
Wim S<strong>no</strong>eijer. S<strong>no</strong>eijer, W. Clematis cultivar group classification with identifying<br />
key and diagrams. 204p. [Gouda: <strong>The</strong> author], 2008.<br />
Judith M. Taylor. Taylor, J.M. <strong>The</strong> global migrations <strong>of</strong> plants: how the world got<br />
into your garden. 312p. St Louis, Mo.: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2009. ISBN<br />
9781930723696.<br />
Dr Maximilian J. Telford and Dr D.T.J. Littlewood. Telford, M.J. and Littlewood,<br />
D.T.J. [eds]. Animal evolution: ge<strong>no</strong>mes, fossils, and trees. 245p. Oxford: OUP, 2009.<br />
ISBN 9780199549429.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Nancy Turner and Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Patrick von Aderkas. Turner, N.J. and Von<br />
Aderkas, P. <strong>The</strong> North American guide to common poiso<strong>no</strong>us plants and mushooms.<br />
375p. Portland, OR: Tomber Press, 2009. ISBN 9780881929294.<br />
Madeleine von Essen. Von Essen, M. Bogstad : park og hager til nytte og behag<br />
<strong>25</strong>6p. Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co., 2009. ISBN 9788203236204.<br />
Colin Watkins. Watkins, C., Kolehmainen, J. and Schulman, L. <strong>The</strong> wild African<br />
violet Saintpaulia (Gesneriaceae): an interim report. 52p. Cambridge: Worldstage,<br />
2002. ISBN 0954408101.<br />
Watkins, C. [et al]. A walking and wildlife guide to the Uluguru Nature Reserve.<br />
200p. Cambridge: Banson, 2009. ISBN 9987911838.
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 9<br />
David Alexander Whyte Henderson. Whyte Henderson, D.A. Alexander Whyte FLS<br />
FZS, botanist, naturalist, zoologist: a study <strong>of</strong> his life and travels in Ceylon and Africa.<br />
2 vols. Gloucestershire: [<strong>The</strong> author], 2009.<br />
Dr Anne Wilkinson. Wilkinson, A. <strong>The</strong> passion for pelargoniums: how they found<br />
their place in the garden. 302p. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2007. ISBN 9780750944281.<br />
Wilkinson, A. <strong>The</strong> Victorian gardener: the growth <strong>of</strong> gardening and the floral world.<br />
236p. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2006. ISBN 075094043.<br />
Book Review<br />
Musa Cliffortiana – Clifford´s banana plant. Carl Linnaeus, 1736. Translated into<br />
English by Stephen Freer with an introduction by Staffan Müller-Wille, 264 pp. illus.,<br />
2007. Regnum Vegetabile. 148 ISSN 0080-0694. Gantner Verlag, Liechtenstein.<br />
Distributed by Koeltz Scientific Books, Koenigstein Germany. ISBN 978-3-906166-<br />
63-6. Price 80 EUR (hardback).<br />
<strong>The</strong> precious original copy <strong>of</strong> Musa Cliffortiana in the library <strong>of</strong> the Leiden branch<br />
<strong>of</strong> the National Herbarium <strong>of</strong> the Netherlands (better k<strong>no</strong>wn perhaps as the<br />
Rijksherbarium) is still uncut: only the large hand-coloured plate by H<strong>of</strong>fman <strong>of</strong> a<br />
large developing infructescence can be unfolded from its hiding place. Does this lack<br />
<strong>of</strong> interest by Dutch botanists in Linnaeus’ first ever botanical mo<strong>no</strong>graph, written in<br />
Holland, reflect on its limited scientific value as insinuated by an English contemporary,<br />
Thomas K<strong>no</strong>wlton, cited in Wilfred Blunt’s biography? Or is it because everything<br />
written by Linnaeus before 1753 is irrelevant to practicing botanical <strong>no</strong>menclaturists,<br />
who are even on record as referring to all Linnaeus’ publications before Species<br />
Plantarum (1753) as pre-Linnaean? Whatever the explanation, Stephen Freer’s<br />
translation and Staffan Müller-Wille’s extensive and in-depth introduction are <strong>no</strong>w<br />
available to show what philistines we have been in Holland by <strong>no</strong>t studying this<br />
masterpiece more closely.<br />
<strong>The</strong> story <strong>of</strong> Clifford’s banana has been told numerous times: during his visit to<br />
Holland (1735-1738) Linnaeus, enjoying the patronage <strong>of</strong> the rich banker and East<br />
India Company director, George Clifford, on his estate, the Hartenkamp near Haarlem,<br />
<strong>no</strong>t only catalogued part <strong>of</strong> Clifford’s botanical collections and library to be published<br />
in Hortus Cliffortianus (1738) but it would remain his finest book, thanks to the<br />
beautiful illustrations by Ehret and Wandelaar. Together with Clifford’s gardener<br />
Dietrich Nietzel he also succeeded in inducing banana plants to flower and set fruit,<br />
and in doing so, attracted attention from the Dutch intelligentia. <strong>The</strong> 45 pp. mo<strong>no</strong>graph<br />
Musa Cliffortiana, published by Linnaeus four weeks after the onset <strong>of</strong> the first<br />
flowering <strong>of</strong> Clifford’s banana, far from just being a c<strong>of</strong>fee table book in ho<strong>no</strong>ur <strong>of</strong><br />
George Clifford (it must also have served that purpose rather well), appears to epitomize<br />
all Linnaeus stood for in terms <strong>of</strong> scientific methodology, botanical insights and<br />
networking skills. Following his own prescription for describing any natural subject,<br />
as published in his one folio page Methodus (1736), Linnaeus comprehensively deals<br />
with the names, theoretical matters, the genus, the species, its attributes, its uses, and
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THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
literary matters associated with the banana plant. <strong>The</strong> English translation by itself<br />
makes for good reading. Especially the later handwritten <strong>no</strong>tes by Linnaeus in his<br />
personal copy, are enlightening about his progressing k<strong>no</strong>wledge and insights into the<br />
systematic position, reproductive biology, and traditional k<strong>no</strong>wledge <strong>of</strong> Musa, including<br />
the reference to Syrian and Egyptian Christians who called the banana the pome <strong>of</strong><br />
Paradise, because its phallic shape must have aroused Eve to unbridled lust by its<br />
appearance. Stephen Freer aptly comments in a foot<strong>no</strong>te “Again, a remark highly<br />
revealing <strong>of</strong> Linneaus’ fixation with sex”. As Müller-Wille convincingly demonstrates,<br />
Musa Cliffortiana foreshadows Linnaeus’ later masterpieces such as Classes<br />
Plantarum, Fundamenta Botanica, Species Plantarum and the later editions <strong>of</strong> Systema<br />
Naturae and can be seen as a key to understanding Linnaeus’ scientific agenda. I<br />
found the introduction on Linnaeus’ early career, and the links between botany,<br />
patronage and global trade also very insightful and erudite. <strong>The</strong> translator and the<br />
introductory author have done us a great service by unlocking this treasure box <strong>of</strong><br />
Linnaeus’ heritage for a wide audience. No Fellow <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> or Member<br />
<strong>of</strong> the International Association <strong>of</strong> Plant Taxo<strong>no</strong>mists (who made this publication<br />
possible and enjoy a discount price <strong>of</strong> 64 EUR) should miss reading it.<br />
PIETER BAAS FLS<br />
LEIDEN<br />
Charles Darwin, Live at the <strong>Linnean</strong>!<br />
A Lecture and Performance by<br />
Richard Milner FLS<br />
for the launch <strong>of</strong> his book<br />
“Darwin’s Universe”<br />
followed by a wine reception<br />
10th November 2009, 6.00pm<br />
To register please e-mail events@linnean.org<br />
Join anthropologist and historian Richard Milner for a multimedia<br />
roundup <strong>of</strong> his favourite stories in the history <strong>of</strong> science, taken from<br />
his new authoritative and entertaining book Darwin’s Universe:<br />
Evolution from A to Z, published by University <strong>of</strong> Califormia Press.<br />
Written and performed by <strong>The</strong> New York Times’ favourite “singing<br />
Darwinian scholar”, Milner’s entertaining and scientifically rich<br />
lyrics span musical styles from Gilbert and Sullivan to Tom Leher<br />
and the blues.<br />
Copies <strong>of</strong> the book will be available for signing after the lecture.
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 11<br />
In the Footsteps <strong>of</strong> Charles Darwin<br />
on Tierra Del Fuego<br />
Tim Cloudsley<br />
CRA 17 No. 68-17, La Victoria, Bucaramanga, Colombia<br />
timcloudsley@yahoo.co.uk<br />
“While entering (the Bay <strong>of</strong> Good Success) we were saluted in a manner becoming the<br />
inhabitants <strong>of</strong> this savage land. A group <strong>of</strong> Fuegians partly concealed by the entangled<br />
forest, were perched on a wild point overhanging the sea; and as we passed by, they<br />
sprang up, and waving their tattered cloaks sent forth a loud and so<strong>no</strong>rous shout. <strong>The</strong><br />
savages followed the ship, and just before dark we saw their fire, and again heard their<br />
wild cry.”<br />
Charles Darwin, Voyage Of <strong>The</strong> Beagle.<br />
This is how Darwin described his first encounter with the Haush, or Selk’nam, a<br />
hunter-gathering people <strong>of</strong> eastern Tierra del Fuego, on December 17th 1832, in his<br />
Journal Of Researches Into <strong>The</strong> Geology And Natural History Of <strong>The</strong> Various Countries<br />
Visited By H.M.S. Beagle, Under <strong>The</strong> Command Of Captain Fitzroy, R.N. From 1832<br />
To 1836, the book which subsequently became k<strong>no</strong>wn as Voyage Of <strong>The</strong> Beagle.<br />
David Wilson, in his book Indige<strong>no</strong>us South Americans <strong>of</strong> the Past and Present,<br />
writes thus <strong>of</strong> Darwin‘s account <strong>of</strong> meeting Fuegian peoples:<br />
“..........upon encountering the (Fuegian) people, this nineteenth-century European<br />
gentleman could scarcely believe that such ‘wretched savages’ belonged to the human<br />
race. Nevertheless, the scientist in him was able to rise above narrower nineteenthcentury<br />
English prejudices, permitting him to see that these people, so different from<br />
any indige<strong>no</strong>us peoples to the <strong>no</strong>rth (i.e. in the Andes and Brazil), must have come down<br />
from the <strong>no</strong>rth at some remote time in the past to adapt, and thus endure, in the Fuegian<br />
climate.”<br />
Of course, one must understand Darwin’s observations in the light <strong>of</strong> his social<br />
and historical context: as a member <strong>of</strong> the English upper classes <strong>of</strong> the 1830s, but also<br />
as a ‘member’ <strong>of</strong> the fraternity <strong>of</strong> European scientist-travellers <strong>of</strong> that period who<br />
visited and reported on their observations in South America. Nevertheless, his<br />
perceptions are striking, partly because <strong>of</strong> the precise and exact prose he used in his<br />
accounts <strong>of</strong> the native peoples he met, which is quite as limpid and superb as are his<br />
geological and biological descriptions. Darwin‘s attitudes can surprise today’s readers<br />
perhaps, because it was <strong>no</strong>t inevitable that a European gentleman-scientist <strong>of</strong> his period<br />
should think in his way. Humboldt for example, in his writings about his experiences<br />
in Colombia and Venezuela some thirty or so years earlier, stressed a universalistic<br />
humanism which united peoples <strong>of</strong> the Old and New Worlds; and although convinced<br />
<strong>of</strong> the cultural inferiority <strong>of</strong> South American ‘natives’ in certain respects in comparison<br />
with Europeans, he adopted a different tone from Darwin, and constantly affirmed his<br />
belief that slavery was the greatest evil in the world. He put his Kantian ethics where<br />
his mouth was, so to speak. And H.W. Bates, Darwin’s contemporary and fellow<br />
countryman, in his book <strong>The</strong> Naturalist On <strong>The</strong> River Amazons, speaks <strong>of</strong> Amazonian
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THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
Indians and what would today be called caboclos in much more sympathic and<br />
respectful terms, <strong>no</strong>ting particularly how beautiful the women <strong>of</strong> the region were!<br />
(See the NOTE at the end <strong>of</strong> this essay.)<br />
Let us follow Darwin’s account further:<br />
“In the morning, the Captain sent a party to communicate with the Fuegians. When we<br />
came within hail, one <strong>of</strong> the four natives who were present advanced to receive us, and<br />
began to shout most vehemently, wishing to direct us where to land. When we were on<br />
shore the party looked rather alarmed, but continued talking and making gestures with<br />
great rapidity. It was without exception the most curious and interesting spectacle I had<br />
ever beheld. I could <strong>no</strong>t have believed how wide was the difference, between savage<br />
and civilized man. It is greater than between a wild and domesticated animal, in as much<br />
as in man there is a greater power <strong>of</strong> improvement.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> extraordinary thing about this passage is <strong>no</strong>t really the s<strong>no</strong>bbery <strong>of</strong> comparing<br />
a ‘savage’ with a wild animal, in comparison with a ‘civilized’ man who is compared<br />
with a domesticated animal. It is rather that, as Darwin would later show in On the<br />
Origin <strong>of</strong> Species, in the course <strong>of</strong> man’s domestication <strong>of</strong> animals and plants from<br />
wild precursors, their original ‘natures’ are lost, and replaced by artificial races that<br />
can <strong>no</strong> longer survive in nature. <strong>The</strong> latter owe their existence entirely to the species<br />
Homo sapiens sapiens; they are wholly dependent upon man, having been manipulated<br />
through breeding to yield what man wants, and to be tame, obedient, and subservient<br />
to man. In a sense <strong>of</strong> course, they are <strong>no</strong> more <strong>no</strong>r less ‘natural’ or ‘artificial’ than wild<br />
species, and <strong>no</strong> less ‘free’ or ‘unfree’. <strong>The</strong> only relevant criterion within the theory <strong>of</strong><br />
evolution is survival. Nevertheless, it is strange that this man, Charles Darwin, should<br />
prefer being similar to a domesticated animal than to a ‘wild’, ‘authentic’, ‘natural’<br />
one, especially when it is he who will unlock the great secret <strong>of</strong> biology, the theory <strong>of</strong><br />
evolution, as driven by ‘natural selection’. That human ‘improvement’ within<br />
‘civilization’ should seem analogous to being shaped into an obsequious and dependent<br />
condition by others purely for their exploitative convenience, might in fact be a very<br />
apt insight into the condition <strong>of</strong> the vast majority <strong>of</strong> people in civilizations based on<br />
social classes and hierarchical domination; yet for the fearless, rebellious scientist<br />
who was to enter with his mind into the wildest truths <strong>of</strong> organic nature, in an era still<br />
largely dominated by religious dogmas and unquestioned traditions, it can<strong>no</strong>t but appear<br />
amazing.<br />
Darwin continues:<br />
“<strong>The</strong> chief spokesman was old, and appeared to be the head <strong>of</strong> the family; the three<br />
others were powerful young men, about 6 feet high. <strong>The</strong> women and children had been<br />
sent away. <strong>The</strong>se Fuegians are a very different race from the stunted miserable wretches<br />
further to the westward, <strong>The</strong>y are much superior in person, and seem closely allied to<br />
the famous Patagonians <strong>of</strong> the Strait <strong>of</strong> Magellan. <strong>The</strong>ir only garment consists <strong>of</strong> a<br />
mantle made <strong>of</strong> guanaco skin, with the wool outside; this they wear just thrown over<br />
their shoulders, as <strong>of</strong>ten leaving their persons exposed as covered. <strong>The</strong>ir skin is <strong>of</strong> a<br />
dirty coppery red colour.”<br />
Darwin‘s observations become contradictory here: though these people are<br />
according to him ‘superior’ to the ‘stunted miserable wretches further to the westward’<br />
(in fact the first group must have been Haush or Selk’nam, the second Yámana). <strong>The</strong>y
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 13<br />
(the Haush) are described as being <strong>of</strong> a ‘dirty’ colour. (No doubt Darwin thought the<br />
Yámana were still dirtier.) Yet at the same time Darwin creates a picture <strong>of</strong> dignified<br />
people, ‘powerful’, and ‘six feet high’. <strong>The</strong>se people were adapted to a tough climate<br />
and geography, and made effective use <strong>of</strong> the only large mammal available, the guanaco,<br />
from which they obtained their food and their clothing. Yet the latter is described<br />
disdainfully by Darwin, as representing ‘their only garment’.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> old man had a fillet <strong>of</strong> white feathers tied round his head, which partly confined his<br />
black, coarse, and entangled hair. His face was crossed by two broad transverse bars;<br />
one painted bright red from ear to ear, and included the upper lip; the other, white like<br />
chalk, extended parallel and above the first, so that even his eyelids were thus coloured.<br />
Some <strong>of</strong> the other men were ornamented by streaks <strong>of</strong> black powder, made <strong>of</strong> charcoal.<br />
<strong>The</strong> party altogether closely resembled the devils which come on stage in such plays as<br />
Der Freischutz.”<br />
Strangely paradoxical is this passage. <strong>The</strong> old man is wonderfully depicted, though<br />
to use the word ‘coarse’ to describe his hair rather than perhaps ‘thick’ seems a little<br />
contemptuous. But the picture <strong>of</strong> his and the other Haush men’s painted faces is brilliant,<br />
and would suggest that Darwin, like any intelligent observer, realizes how difficult it<br />
must be to enhance facial features with access only to substances available in the<br />
immediate environment, and how strongly this fact testifies to a powerful aesthetic<br />
and imaginative urge, <strong>no</strong> less strong than that witnessed in ‘Civilization’. With respect<br />
to these men being compared with the devils in Der Freischutz, one wonders whether<br />
for Darwin this is a compliment or a condemnation! For are <strong>no</strong>t these ‘devils’ the<br />
product <strong>of</strong> a great Romantic European imagination? To find their archetypes at the<br />
other end <strong>of</strong> the earth might have been as exciting to Darwin as his discovery that<br />
Lyell’s theories <strong>of</strong> geology, derived from the latter’s studies in Europe, applied<br />
admirably to the mountain ranges <strong>of</strong> South America.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>ir very attitudes were abject, and the expression <strong>of</strong> their countenances distrustful,<br />
surprised, and startled. After we had presented them with some scarlet cloth, which they<br />
immediately tied around their necks, they became good friends. This was shown by the<br />
old man patting our breasts, and making a chuckling kind <strong>of</strong> <strong>no</strong>ise, as people do when<br />
feeding chickens. I walked with the old man, and this demonstration <strong>of</strong> friendship was<br />
repeated several times; it was concluded by three hard slaps, which were given me on<br />
the breast and back at the same time. He then bared his bosom for me to return the<br />
compliment, which being done, he seemed highly pleased. <strong>The</strong> language <strong>of</strong> these people,<br />
according to our <strong>no</strong>tions, scarcely deserves to be called articulate. Captain Cook has<br />
compared it to a man clearing his throat, but certainly <strong>no</strong> European ever cleared his<br />
throat with so many hoarse, gutteral, and clicking sounds.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>se people, faced with the unexpected appearance <strong>of</strong> a shipful <strong>of</strong> Europeans on<br />
their land, were friendly, communicative, and eager to display and share their customs<br />
with Darwin and his colleagues. Certainly, they might be ‘surprised’, ‘startled’, and<br />
indeed ‘distrustful’, unsurprisingly. Yet they were courageous and welcoming e<strong>no</strong>ugh<br />
to ‘advance’ and ‘receive’ the strangers. One wonders how Darwin and the crew <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Beagle would have reacted if they had been walking one day in the hills on the coast<br />
<strong>of</strong> North Devon, when a shipload <strong>of</strong> men from Tierra del Fuego suddenly arrived from<br />
the sea and disembarked before their eyes. Darwin`s description <strong>of</strong> ‘their very attitudes’<br />
as ‘abject’ seems indeed an unsympathetic and unimaginative one.
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But it is at the point where Darwin describes their language as ‘inarticulate’ that<br />
he displays pure bigotry, even though he qualifies his words with the phrase ‘according<br />
to our <strong>no</strong>tions’. ‘No European ever cleared his throat with so many hoarse, gutteral,<br />
and clicking sounds.’ Now would the man who discovered the theory <strong>of</strong> evolution<br />
compare the wings <strong>of</strong> one species <strong>of</strong> finch on the Galapagos Islands with a<strong>no</strong>ther in<br />
the way he here compares a Fuegian language with a European one? He would surely<br />
<strong>no</strong>t compare the morphological adaptations <strong>of</strong> two different finch species in a way<br />
that was derogatory to one and praising <strong>of</strong> the other, inasmuch as they differed. He<br />
would <strong>no</strong>t take one as a desirable <strong>no</strong>rm, the other as deficient in some way.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>y are excellent mimics: as <strong>of</strong>ten as we coughed or yawned, or made any odd motion,<br />
they immediately imitated us. Some <strong>of</strong> our party began to squint and look awry; but one<br />
<strong>of</strong> the young Fuegians (whose whole face was painted black, excepting a white band<br />
across his eyes) succeeded in making far more hideous grimaces. <strong>The</strong>y could repeat<br />
with perfect correctness, each word in any sentence we addressed them, and they<br />
remembered such words for some time. Yet we Europeans all k<strong>no</strong>w how difficult it is to<br />
distinguish apart the sounds in a foreign language. Which <strong>of</strong> us, for instance, could<br />
follow an American Indian through a sentence <strong>of</strong> more than three words? All savages<br />
appear to possess, to an uncommon degree, this power <strong>of</strong> mimicry. I was told almost in<br />
the same words, <strong>of</strong> the same ludicrous habits among the Caffres: the Australians, likewise,<br />
have long been <strong>no</strong>torious for being able to imitate and describe the gait <strong>of</strong> any man, so<br />
that he may be recognized. How can this faculty be explained? Is it a consequence <strong>of</strong> the<br />
more practised habits <strong>of</strong> perception and keener senses, common to all men in a savage<br />
state, as compared to those long civilized?”<br />
Darwin here admires the ability <strong>of</strong> these Haush to mimic his and his companions’<br />
gestures, sounds, and words. He admits they are better at this than ‘we Europeans’,<br />
and even commences, for a moment, to enter into a scientific speculation into the<br />
reasons for this. Yet he describes this facility as a ‘ludicrous habit’.<br />
“When a song was struck up by our party, I thought the Fuegians would have fallen<br />
down with astonishment. With equal surprise they viewed our dancing; but one <strong>of</strong> the<br />
young men, when asked, had <strong>no</strong> objection to a little waltzing. Little accustomed to<br />
Europeans as they appeared to be, yet they knew, and dreaded our fire-arms; <strong>no</strong>thing<br />
would tempt them to take a gun in their hands. <strong>The</strong>y begged for knives, calling them by<br />
the Spanish word ‘cuchilla’. <strong>The</strong>y explained also what they wanted, by acting as if they<br />
had a piece <strong>of</strong> blubber in their mouth, and then pretending to cut instead <strong>of</strong> tear it.”<br />
Here again, Darwin observes and apparently admires these Indians’ interest in,<br />
and openness to entering into his and his colleagues’ way <strong>of</strong> dancing. He observes<br />
their sensible reluctance to play around with fire-arms. And he shows how well they<br />
k<strong>no</strong>w which piece <strong>of</strong> European tech<strong>no</strong>logy they want, the knife, and how they can<br />
communicate very well both their desire for this and the use to which they will put it.<br />
“It was interesting to watch the conduct <strong>of</strong> these people towards Jemmy Button (one <strong>of</strong><br />
the Fuegians who had been taken, during the former voyage, to England. Captain Fitzroy<br />
has given a history <strong>of</strong> these people. Four were taken to England; one died there, and the<br />
three others – two men and one woman – were <strong>no</strong>w brought back and settled in their<br />
own country): they immediately perceived the difference between him and the rest, and<br />
held much conversation between themselves on the subject. <strong>The</strong> old man addressed a<br />
long harangue to Jemmy, which it seems was to invite him to stay with them. But Jemmy<br />
understood very little <strong>of</strong> their language, and was, moreover, thoroughly ashamed <strong>of</strong> his
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countrymen. When York Minster (a<strong>no</strong>ther <strong>of</strong> these men) came on shore, they <strong>no</strong>ticed<br />
him in the same way, and told him he ought to shave; yet he had <strong>no</strong>t twenty dwarf hairs<br />
on his face, whilst we all wore our untrimmed beards. <strong>The</strong>y examined the colour <strong>of</strong> his<br />
skin, and compared it with ours. One <strong>of</strong> our arms being bared, they expressed the liveliest<br />
surprise and admiration at its whiteness. We thought that they mistook two or three <strong>of</strong><br />
the <strong>of</strong>ficers, who were rather shorter and fairer (though adorned with large beards), for<br />
the ladies <strong>of</strong> our party. <strong>The</strong> tallest amongst the Fuegians was evidently much pleased at<br />
his height being <strong>no</strong>ticed. When placed back to back with the tallest <strong>of</strong> the boat’s crew, he<br />
tried his best to edge on higher ground, and to stand on tiptoe. He opened his mouth to<br />
show his teeth, and turned his face for a side view; and all this was done with such<br />
alacrity, that I dare say he thought himself the handsomest man in Tierra del Fuego.<br />
After the first feeling on our part <strong>of</strong> grave astonishment was over, <strong>no</strong>thing could be more<br />
ludicrous or interesting than the odd mixture <strong>of</strong> surprise and imitation which these savages<br />
every moment exhibited.”<br />
To us today, these observations must evoke some sadness, <strong>no</strong>w that these peoples<br />
have been exterminated or wholly assimilated, by a combination <strong>of</strong> ge<strong>no</strong>cide and<br />
eth<strong>no</strong>cide. It is <strong>no</strong>t clear with whom Darwin’s sympathies lie in this fatefully significant<br />
and tragic encounter between the minimally acculturated Haush and the three Yámana<br />
who had previously been wrenched from their land and culture and dragged over to<br />
England. Darwin had come to k<strong>no</strong>w these ‘Europeanized’ Yámana on the voyage<br />
from England, before reaching Tierra del Fuego where he met their ‘savage<br />
countrymen’.<br />
Darwin says that the old Haush man ‘addressed a long harangue to Jemmy (a<br />
Yámana) which it seems was to invite him to stay’, indicating that he disapproved <strong>of</strong><br />
these Fuegians being taken away to become ‘Europeanized’. He and the other Haush<br />
tell York Minster that he ought to shave, rather than grow a beard like Englishmen.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Haush wonder whether, having been some time with the Englishmen in their<br />
country, York Minster’s skin has changed colour, to become like theirs. This passage<br />
<strong>of</strong> Darwin’s is full <strong>of</strong> most pertinent observations, though it is peppered with prejudices:<br />
the Haush men’s surprise is once again described as ‘ludicrous’, whilst their<br />
examination <strong>of</strong> an Englishman’s skin is assumed to express ‘admiration at its whiteness’.<br />
But perhaps the saddest remark <strong>of</strong> all that Darwin makes, and let us assume he is<br />
correct in his assessment, is that Jemmy was ‘thoroughly ashamed <strong>of</strong> his countrymen’.<br />
<strong>The</strong> observation is made in a ruthlessly cold, ‘objective’ manner, though Darwin seems<br />
unconscious <strong>of</strong> this.<br />
Let us emphasize again that Jemmy and York Minster were Yámana, whilst the<br />
Fuegians they met here with Darwin were Haush, or Selk’man. It is significant that<br />
Darwin considers the Yámana living in Tierra del Fuego to be more degraded than the<br />
Haush living there, although Jemmy Button, the captured Yámana that had been taken<br />
to England, he sees as l<strong>of</strong>tier than the Haush.<br />
<strong>The</strong> account given by Darwin so far, has all been from his journal entry for<br />
December 17th 1832. Let us <strong>no</strong>w move on to that <strong>of</strong> December <strong>25</strong> th , when he<br />
encountered some Yámana Indians further to the west <strong>of</strong> the island:<br />
“This part <strong>of</strong> Tierra del Fuego (called Kater’s Peak) may be considered as the extremity<br />
<strong>of</strong> the submerged chain <strong>of</strong> mountains already alluded to. <strong>The</strong> cove takes its name <strong>of</strong><br />
‘Wigwam’ from some <strong>of</strong> the Fuegian habitations; but every bay in the neighbourhood
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might be so called with equal propriety. <strong>The</strong> inhabitants living chiefly upon shellfish,<br />
are obliged constantly to change their place <strong>of</strong> residence; but they return at intervals to<br />
the same spots, as is evident from the pile <strong>of</strong> old shells, which must <strong>of</strong>ten amount to<br />
some tons in weight. <strong>The</strong>se heaps can be distinguished at a long distance by the green<br />
colour <strong>of</strong> certain plants, which invariably grow on them. Among these may be enumerated<br />
the wild celery and scurvy grass, two very serviceable plants, the use <strong>of</strong> which has <strong>no</strong>t<br />
been discovered by the natives.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Fuegian wigwam resembles, in size and dimensions, a haycock. It merely consists<br />
<strong>of</strong> a few broken branches stuck in the ground, and very imperfectly thatched on one side<br />
with a few tufts <strong>of</strong> grass and rushes. <strong>The</strong> whole can<strong>no</strong>t be so much as the work <strong>of</strong> an<br />
hour, and it is only used for a few days. At Goeree Roads I saw a place where one <strong>of</strong><br />
these naked men had slept, which absolutely <strong>of</strong>fered <strong>no</strong> more cover than the form <strong>of</strong> a<br />
hare. <strong>The</strong> man was evidently living by himself, and York Minster said he was ‘very bad<br />
man’, and that probably he had stolen something. On the west coast, however, the<br />
wigwams are rather better, for they are covered with seal-skins.”<br />
Darwin provides a good description here <strong>of</strong> the Yámana mode <strong>of</strong> life. It is strange<br />
though, that the ‘wigwam’ he observed is described as ‘merely consisting <strong>of</strong> a few<br />
broken branches’, and as ‘very imperfectly thatched’. No doubt these houses sufficed;<br />
they would have represented a bad adaptation to a hard environment if more labourtime<br />
than was necessary were expended on their construction. In a case like this, a<br />
direct comparison might reasonably and legitimately be made between adaptations to<br />
the environment developed by human beings on the one hand and by other animals on<br />
the other.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se people were <strong>no</strong>madic hunter-gatherers, spending ‘only a few days’ in any<br />
particular ‘wigwam’; if ‘on the west coast the wigwams are rather better, for they are<br />
covered with seal-skins’, presumably this is either because seals are more available<br />
on the west coast than at Kater’s Peak, or because the weather on the west coast is that<br />
much more inclement, making it worthwhile or necessary to undertake the effort <strong>of</strong><br />
protecting homes with seal-skins.<br />
It is unreasonable perhaps to dispute the validity <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s observations <strong>of</strong><br />
Yámana houses. Nevertheless, when one looks at the replicas <strong>of</strong> typical Yámana houses<br />
outside the Museo Del Fin Del Mundo in Ushuaia, or at old photographs <strong>of</strong> real ones,<br />
one can only say that they appear extremely well-built, sturdy, functional, and attractive.<br />
Just as the bows and arrows, harpoons, baskets and other utensils on display in the<br />
museums at Ushuaia are very beautifully made; exemplary instances <strong>of</strong> objects made<br />
both for use and in accordance with aesthetic principles, as William Morris believed<br />
is true <strong>of</strong> all authentic art and craft.<br />
<strong>The</strong> comment made by York Minster that Darwin records, indicates that the former’s<br />
English acculturation has turned him into something <strong>of</strong> a s<strong>no</strong>b, as well as encouraging<br />
him apparently to accuse a man <strong>of</strong> a crime without evidence or pro<strong>of</strong>.<br />
It is striking that amidst the close and accurate account that Darwin gives <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Yámana lifestyle, he describes their evidently effective solution to the challenges <strong>of</strong><br />
their environment as obliging them ‘constantly to change their place <strong>of</strong> residence’.<br />
This mode <strong>of</strong> expressing it implies it is undesirable and ab<strong>no</strong>rmal so to live; to stay in<br />
one place indefinitely is desirable and <strong>no</strong>rmal. Is it <strong>no</strong>t odd that Charles Darwin, the
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man who discovered who and what humanity really is, should consider the mode <strong>of</strong><br />
life that predominated over the vast majority <strong>of</strong> its existence – the mode moreover that<br />
undoubtedly represents a direct continuity from our ‘natural’ and animal past – as<br />
undesirable and ab<strong>no</strong>rmal?<br />
“At a subsequent period the Beagle anchored for a couple <strong>of</strong> days under Wollaston<br />
Island, which is a short way to the <strong>no</strong>rthward. While going on shore we pulled alongside<br />
a ca<strong>no</strong>e with six Fuegians. <strong>The</strong>se were the most abject and miserable creatures I any<br />
where beheld. I believe, in this extreme part <strong>of</strong> South America, man exists in a lower<br />
state <strong>of</strong> improvement than in any other part <strong>of</strong> the world. <strong>The</strong> South Sea islander <strong>of</strong><br />
either race is comparatively civilized. <strong>The</strong> Esquimaux, in his subterranean hut, enjoys<br />
some <strong>of</strong> the comforts <strong>of</strong> life, and in his ca<strong>no</strong>e, when fully equipped, manifests much<br />
skill. Some <strong>of</strong> the tribes <strong>of</strong> Southern Africa, prowling about in search <strong>of</strong> roots, and living<br />
concealed on the wild and arid planes, are sufficiently wretched. But the Australian, in<br />
the simplicity <strong>of</strong> the arts <strong>of</strong> life, comes nearest the Fuegian. He can, however, boast <strong>of</strong><br />
his boomerang, his spear and throwing-stick, his method <strong>of</strong> clmbing trees, tracking<br />
animals, and scheme <strong>of</strong> hunting. Although thus superior in acquirements, it by <strong>no</strong> means<br />
follows that he should likewise be so in capabilities. Indeed, from what we saw <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Fuegians, who were taken to England, I should think the case was the reverse.”<br />
One feels like asking Darwin, why are people who live in, and are adapted to, a<br />
tough environment, in which they have very likely survived for millenia, to be<br />
considered ‘abject’ and ‘miserable’? No doubt, if seen ca<strong>no</strong>eing on a cold, stormy<br />
day, elemental wear and tear would be expressed on people’s faces; but would <strong>no</strong>t this<br />
be equally true for Cornish fishermen in a storm, or for Lancashire workmen walking<br />
to the cotton-mill on a cold, rainy morning? In his comparisons <strong>of</strong> the Fuegians with<br />
South Sea Islanders, Eskimos, and peoples from Southern Africa and Australia, he is<br />
scientific again (except in his use <strong>of</strong> the word ‘wretched’). Interestingly though, in his<br />
statement that native Australians are ‘superior in acquirements’ to the Fuegians, he<br />
also suggests that Fuegians are superior to Australians in ‘capabilities’. This judgement<br />
apparently rests on Darwin’s assessment <strong>of</strong> how well the Fuegians who had been<br />
taken to England ‘improved’. Here he seems to be in a real confusion. If it was the<br />
entry into civilized English culture and society that ensured these Fuegians’<br />
‘improvement’, then he does <strong>no</strong>t assume their deficiencies are intrinsic to their ‘race’,<br />
that is, as a biological given. But on the other hand, in suggesting that the Australians,<br />
in spite <strong>of</strong> their ‘superiority in acquirements’, are intrinsically inferior in ‘capabilites,’<br />
he implies in their case the opposite.<br />
Of course Darwin can hardly be blamed for <strong>no</strong>t having resolved the nature/nurture,<br />
biology/culture dilemma in the understanding <strong>of</strong> human societies: that issue remains<br />
far from resolved to this day. But it is striking that his observations <strong>of</strong> different forms<br />
<strong>of</strong> human adaptation to different natural, ecological environments should be so filled<br />
with pejorative value judgements and unscientific preconceptions; again, in a fashion<br />
so different from his mode <strong>of</strong> analysing and comparing geological and biological<br />
phe<strong>no</strong>mena. <strong>The</strong> fact is, as David Wilson has shown in the book cited above, that<br />
different societies become adapted to different natural environments in more or less<br />
effective ways. Terms such as ‘simplicity’ or ‘complexity’ <strong>of</strong> adaptation, where they<br />
refer to population sizes typical <strong>of</strong> human groups, their tech<strong>no</strong>logies, or their forms <strong>of</strong><br />
shelter and so on, should be used absolutely neutrally, for they do <strong>no</strong>t register or imply
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any cultural, ethical, or aesthetic inferiority or superiority at all. A small-scale,<br />
tech<strong>no</strong>logically ‘simple’ society that is well-adapted to existence in its environment is<br />
in scientific terms merely successful at surviving in its natural environment.<br />
Clearly however, Darwin‘s implicit view <strong>of</strong> humanity, though contradictory, rests<br />
on one conspicuous presupposition. Whether it is a cultural or biological process,<br />
humanity engages in, or can engage in, a process <strong>of</strong> ‘improvement’ <strong>of</strong> a kind which<br />
Darwin will <strong>no</strong>t build into his theory <strong>of</strong> the biological evolution <strong>of</strong> <strong>no</strong>n-human living<br />
organisms. It seems worth <strong>no</strong>ting therefore, that a presupposition <strong>of</strong> human history<br />
involving a kind <strong>of</strong> ‘linear progress’, an ideology that many have taken to result from<br />
the uncritical translation <strong>of</strong> the fully developed Darwinian theory <strong>of</strong> organic evolution<br />
onto human society – by such late nineteenth-century thinkers as Herbert Spencer for<br />
example – was evidently in Darwin’s mind well before he had made the scientific<br />
breakthrough into his theory <strong>of</strong> biological evolution.<br />
“On the east coast the natives, as we have seen, have guanaco cloaks, and on the west,<br />
they possess seal-skins. Amongst these central tribes the men generally possess an otterskin,<br />
or some small scrap about as large as a pocket-handkerchief, which is barely<br />
sufficient to cover their backs as low as their loins. It is laced across the breast by<br />
strings, and according as the wind blows, it is shifted from side to side. But these Fuegians<br />
in the ca<strong>no</strong>e were quite naked, and even one full-grown woman was absolutely so. It<br />
was raining heavily, and the fresh water, together with the spray, trickled down her body.<br />
In a<strong>no</strong>ther harbour <strong>no</strong>t far distant, a woman, who was suckling a recently-born child,<br />
came one day alongside the vessel, and remained there whilst the sleet fell and thawed<br />
on her naked bosom, and on the skin <strong>of</strong> her naked child. <strong>The</strong>se poor wretches were<br />
stunted in their growth, their hideous faces bedaubed with white paint, their skins filthy<br />
and greasy, their hair entangled, their voices discordant, their gestures violent and without<br />
dignity. Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself believe they are fellow-creatures,<br />
and inhabitants <strong>of</strong> the same world. It is a common subject <strong>of</strong> conjecture what pleasure in<br />
life some <strong>of</strong> the less gifted animals can enjoy: how much more reasonably the same<br />
question may be asked with respect to these barbarians. At night, five or six human<br />
beings, naked and scarcely protected from the wind and rain <strong>of</strong> this tempestuous climate,<br />
sleep on the wet ground coiled up like animals. Whenever it is low water, they must rise<br />
to pick shell-fish from the rocks; and the women, winter and summer, either dive to<br />
collect sea eggs, or sit patiently in their ca<strong>no</strong>es, and, with a baited hair-line, jerk out<br />
small fish. If a seal is killed, or the floating carcass <strong>of</strong> a putrid whale discovered, it is a<br />
feast: such miserable food is assisted by a few tasteless berries and fungi. Nor are they<br />
exempt from famine, and, as a consequence, cannibalism accompanied by parricide.”<br />
Darwin seems to imply here that the ‘small scrap’ the men wear is insufficient,<br />
just as he assumes that the nakedness <strong>of</strong> other men and women is lamentable. His own<br />
morality and preconceptions prevent him from asking whether these are <strong>no</strong>t once<br />
again effective adaptations to the environment. Attitudes like these <strong>of</strong> Darwin are<br />
perfectly borne out in photographs <strong>of</strong> Yámana taken by missionaries later in the<br />
nineteenth century, in which both men and women have been coerced humiliatingly<br />
into hiding their genital regions with their hands.<br />
Yet in a climate where rain is frequent, the Yámana found that <strong>no</strong>t wearing clothes,<br />
but instead applying oil or grease to their skins, was a better form <strong>of</strong> protection. Clothes<br />
can <strong>of</strong>ten remain permanently wet when one is exposed to such an environment, whereas<br />
water ‘trickles down’ a body covered in grease.
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Why Darwin thinks ‘these wretches were stunted in their growth’, rather than<br />
having adapted their average height to the physical exigencies and pressures <strong>of</strong> their<br />
existence, is also strange. But his finding their faces ‘hideous’ is merely prejudice,<br />
whilst his observation that their skins are ‘greasy’, which should answer his<br />
bewilderment that they go naked, means to him that they are merely ‘filthy’, all <strong>of</strong><br />
which is in accord with his judgement that their hair is ‘entangled’, ‘their voices<br />
discordant’, ‘their gestures violent and without dignity’. <strong>The</strong> passage that follows<br />
these remarks is rhetorical, and perhaps it is more a poetry <strong>of</strong> (unnecessary) pity and<br />
sympathy than <strong>of</strong> arrogance, as the prejudice and sense <strong>of</strong> superiority appear to be<br />
unconscious and gentle: ‘Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself believe<br />
they are fellow-creatures......’. But then comes the suggestion that people <strong>of</strong>ten wonder<br />
what pleasure in life ‘some <strong>of</strong> the less gifted animals can enjoy’.<br />
Do people so wonder, or did they really in Darwin’s time? <strong>The</strong>re seems to be<br />
something false in the rhetoric here: according to the religious view, all animals are<br />
created to fulfil their particular, humble purposes, as part <strong>of</strong> God’s larger, transcendent<br />
plan. This is true <strong>of</strong> Man as well, but since he alone among living things has Free Will,<br />
his situation is distinct from that <strong>of</strong> the other animals. <strong>The</strong> question posed here by<br />
Darwin could have <strong>no</strong> meaning for animals; indeed it might even be blasphemous in<br />
terms <strong>of</strong> traditional Christian theology.<br />
Now, according to Darwin’s theory <strong>of</strong> evolution, which at the time <strong>of</strong> his voyage<br />
on the Beagle he had <strong>no</strong>t yet arrived at, the question must be even more meaningless.<br />
Animals, except for Man, have <strong>no</strong> consciousness, self-awareness, sense <strong>of</strong> purpose,<br />
ethical principles, moral, aesthetic, or sensual ambitions, <strong>no</strong>r criteria for comparisons<br />
over such values or pleasures. <strong>The</strong>y are driven by a blind, <strong>no</strong>n-conscious will to survive,<br />
in order to reproduce biologically. In Man alone, because <strong>of</strong> the emergence through<br />
evolution <strong>of</strong> intelligence, mind, and consciousness, can issues <strong>of</strong> pleasure or purpose<br />
arise. Precisely how Darwin understood these issues in 1832 is <strong>no</strong>t clear, but the<br />
movement <strong>of</strong> his thoughts from ‘the less gifted animals’ to ‘these barbarians’, is hardly<br />
a ‘reasonable’ one, on the basis <strong>of</strong> any consistent system <strong>of</strong> thinking available in his<br />
time. But when Darwin’s account moves once again onto the naked Fuegians sleeping<br />
unprotected from the elements (although he has already shown that they are <strong>no</strong>t wholly<br />
unprotected, due to the grease they apply to their bodies), ‘coiled up like animals’,<br />
comparison between animal and savage, savage and animal (‘how much more<br />
reasonably the same question may be asked with respect to these barbarians’) is turned<br />
around again, in such a way that, given we are considering the thought processes <strong>of</strong><br />
one <strong>of</strong> the greatest geniuses in recorded human history, we are moved to conclude that<br />
he is sacrificing intelligence here to some kind <strong>of</strong> spiteful contempt, or at least, to a<br />
deep human insensitivity.<br />
“Whenever it is low water, they must rise to pick shellfish”, Darwin says (emphasis<br />
added). One might equally say that at every dawn, every maid and servant in every<br />
house in England that has maids and servants, must perforce rise to work for their<br />
masters and mistresses. Or that on those days when a University lecturer has morning<br />
lectures, he or she must rise to deliver those lectures. And animals must go to feed<br />
when opportunity arises. What is Darwin’s point? Perhaps he, as a Victorian gentleman<br />
from a wealthy background with a large unearned income, was one <strong>of</strong> the very few
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organisms <strong>of</strong> any species who did <strong>no</strong>t need to work or make any effort in order to eat,<br />
and one is <strong>no</strong>t sure which fact is more extraordinary: that the scientist who would later<br />
make one <strong>of</strong> the most important discoveries <strong>of</strong> the modern age could be so intellectually<br />
limited in his choice <strong>of</strong> words here, or that this very scientist should have nevertheless<br />
come from the particular class <strong>of</strong> human beings that he did come from.<br />
Darwin is appalled, and contemptuous, that people should make a feast out <strong>of</strong> a<br />
‘putrid whale’, but surely since time immemorial human beings have had to eat the<br />
meat <strong>of</strong> animals that have been dead for a greater or lesser period <strong>of</strong> time. Refrigeration<br />
is a relatively new phe<strong>no</strong>me<strong>no</strong>n, whilst the arts <strong>of</strong> meat preservation have been very<br />
gradual in their historical development. And perhaps taste is in the mouth <strong>of</strong> the eater:<br />
certainly, even in 1832 Darwin must have been aware that taste in food is culturally<br />
extremely relative, as it is in other things. To put it simply, the Yámana may <strong>no</strong>t have<br />
found their berries and fungi ‘tasteless’.<br />
At the end <strong>of</strong> this passage, Darwin makes reference to issues <strong>of</strong> food shortage and<br />
cannibalism. <strong>The</strong> eth<strong>no</strong>graphical literature does <strong>no</strong>t record cannibalism (<strong>no</strong>r ‘parricide’)<br />
as being practiced by Fuegian peoples at any k<strong>no</strong>wn time. <strong>The</strong>re is some debate within<br />
the literature concerning whether infanticide was practiced at any time as a form <strong>of</strong><br />
population control and/or as a response to food shortage. <strong>The</strong> following conclusions arrived<br />
at by David Wilson (op. cit.) concerning the Yámana might be worth quoting here:<br />
“...........overall Yahgan (Yámana) population densities were low and probably always<br />
had been so, since the environment and their subsistence adaptation would <strong>no</strong>t permit<br />
any higher numbers <strong>of</strong> people. We may thus hypothesize that over the hundreds and<br />
thousands <strong>of</strong> years <strong>of</strong> their presence in the archipelago the Yahgan must have had to<br />
practice one or a<strong>no</strong>ther form <strong>of</strong> population regulation............. (but also) children between<br />
the ages <strong>of</strong> two and ten years old were especially at risk in this difficult setting. In light<br />
<strong>of</strong> this, prior to the arrival <strong>of</strong> the European diseases in pre-Contact times high infant<br />
mortality may have been a major factor in the regulation <strong>of</strong> population numbers. In<br />
other words, the rigorous environment itself may have been regulatory in keeping Yahgan<br />
numbers adjusted to the carrying capacity <strong>of</strong> the subsistence-settlement system.”<br />
Let us continue with Darwin‘s account:<br />
“<strong>The</strong> tribes have <strong>no</strong> government or head, yet each is surrounded by other hostile ones,<br />
speaking different dialects; and the cause <strong>of</strong> their warfare would appear to be the means<br />
<strong>of</strong> subsistence. <strong>The</strong>ir country is a broken mass <strong>of</strong> wild rock, l<strong>of</strong>ty hills, and useless<br />
forests: and these are viewed through mists and endless storms. <strong>The</strong> habitable land is<br />
reduced to the stones which form the beach; in search <strong>of</strong> food they are compelled to<br />
wander from spot to spot, and so steep is the coast, that they can only move about in<br />
their wretched ca<strong>no</strong>es. <strong>The</strong>y can<strong>no</strong>t k<strong>no</strong>w the feeling <strong>of</strong> having a home, and still less that<br />
<strong>of</strong> domestic affection; unless indeed the treatment <strong>of</strong> a master to a laborious slave can be<br />
considered as such. How little can the higher powers <strong>of</strong> the mind be brought into play!<br />
What is there for imagination to picture, for reason to compare, for judgement to decide<br />
upon? to k<strong>no</strong>ck a limpet from the rock does <strong>no</strong>t even require cunning, that lowest power<br />
<strong>of</strong> the mind. <strong>The</strong>ir skill in some respects may be compared to the instinct <strong>of</strong> animals; for<br />
it is <strong>no</strong>t improved by experience: the ca<strong>no</strong>e, their most ingenious work, poor as it is, has<br />
remained the same, for the last <strong>25</strong>0 years.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> beginning <strong>of</strong> this passage invites <strong>no</strong> controversy, until we arrive at the word<br />
‘useless,’ which comes before the word ‘forests.’ Surely, even a gentleman from
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domesticated England in 1832 would be aware that forests have many resources, and<br />
that numerous <strong>no</strong>madic peoples had inhabited them, and still did in 1832. <strong>The</strong> Yámana<br />
extracted among other things wood and tree bark from the forests, from which they<br />
fashioned many items including buckets, and the ‘wretched’ ca<strong>no</strong>es that Darwin<br />
denigrates. <strong>The</strong> Argentinian archaeologist Luis Albert Borrero has written <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Yámana (in an article called <strong>The</strong> Origins <strong>of</strong> Eth<strong>no</strong>graphic Subsistence Patterns in<br />
Fuego-Patagonia), that:<br />
“Ca<strong>no</strong>es were the mainstay <strong>of</strong> their maritime adaptation. <strong>The</strong>y were <strong>no</strong>t only an<br />
indispensable means <strong>of</strong> transportation, but also formed the focus <strong>of</strong> family life. Families<br />
moved everywhere by ca<strong>no</strong>e, some even carrying fires burning inside them almost<br />
permanently, and they have been observed consuming mussels on board”.<br />
<strong>The</strong> territory <strong>of</strong> the Yámana was limited to areas where maritime and forest<br />
environments were close by, as they depended crucially on both. Habitable land was<br />
<strong>no</strong>t only to be found among the stones on the beach; though why Darwin should think<br />
such a location beneath contempt is anyway extraordinary.<br />
Now there may have been a particular aspect <strong>of</strong> the European mind-set which<br />
influenced Darwin in his choice <strong>of</strong> the word ‘useless’ to describe the forests. We<br />
k<strong>no</strong>w that a dominant perception <strong>of</strong> forests throughout the European Middle Ages<br />
was that they were dangerous, Satanic, wicked places. In the Confessions, Saint<br />
Augustine includes mountains, rivers, and oceans in the category <strong>of</strong> nature’s fallen<br />
matter, admiration <strong>of</strong> whose sights was capable <strong>of</strong> distracting a Christian from the<br />
proper contemplation <strong>of</strong> God and one’s own soul. One can easily imagine forests<br />
could have joined the list, if he had extended it further. As a realm <strong>of</strong> material nature,<br />
standing over and against the spiritual realm and that <strong>of</strong> civilization, forests for centuries<br />
symbolized both sinful temptation and a chaotic, unproductive world that must be<br />
tamed and brought under control by hard work and godliness, that is, under human<br />
control – meaning also human self-control. In the modern era, up to the emergence <strong>of</strong><br />
the (first) Romantic Movement and its associated Romantic sensibility, much <strong>of</strong> this<br />
way <strong>of</strong> thinking persisted, and was indeed intensified by the new imperatives <strong>of</strong><br />
capitalism, science, tech<strong>no</strong>logy, urbanism, and modernizing agriculture. Francis Bacon,<br />
the first major philosopher <strong>of</strong> modern science, considered that Nature should be<br />
interrogated like a harlot to yield up Her secrets. Descartes considered that for the<br />
rational scientific mind, i<strong>no</strong>rganic and organic nature must be regarded as machinelike,<br />
and they would yield up infinite resources if treated in that way.<br />
But from about 1770 some <strong>of</strong> these attitudes began to change, especially in Germany<br />
and Britain, under the influence especially <strong>of</strong> the Romantic poets Wordsworth,<br />
Coleridge, Blake, Byron, Shelley, and Keats; and <strong>of</strong> artists like Constable and Turner.<br />
In Germany, analogous sentiments are to be found in much <strong>of</strong> Goethe’s poetry, and in<br />
the art <strong>of</strong> Caspar David Friedrich, but especially in the great German and Austrian<br />
composers, Beethoven and Schubert. All these people were dead or old by 1832; had<br />
Darwin <strong>no</strong>t been influenced by them at all? His view <strong>of</strong> the vast, stupendous forests <strong>of</strong><br />
Tierra del Fuego is closer to the aesthetic attitude to nature <strong>of</strong> Dr. Samuel Johnson as<br />
expressed in his account <strong>of</strong> travels in 1773 to the Highlands and Islands <strong>of</strong> Scotland,<br />
A Journey to the Western Isles <strong>of</strong> Scotland, than to that expressed in the numerous<br />
Guides to the English Lake District that were available by the 1830s, let alone to the
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poetic imagination <strong>of</strong> William Wordsworth, who was a student at Cambridge University,<br />
like Darwin, though roughly fifty years earlier. To the Romantic mind forests, like all<br />
‘wild’ nature, <strong>of</strong>fered excitement, adventure, and challenge to the over-ordered, onesidedly<br />
rational character <strong>of</strong> modern man: they mirrored the strange and unfathomable<br />
depths <strong>of</strong> the human mind and soul, as otherwise only art, poetry or music could, or<br />
the emotions <strong>of</strong> love, or the realm <strong>of</strong> dreams. ‘Wild’, ‘chaotic’, ‘raw’ nature was<br />
something awesome and sublime, as Emanuel Kant had it, because it was ‘infinite’<br />
and beyond any narrow usefulness. It displayed ‘final form’ as art did, precisely through<br />
its apparent chaos. To use Ehrenzweig’s phrase, ‘untamed’ nature expressed ‘the higher<br />
order <strong>of</strong> chaos’.<br />
Once again, we are amazed that the young Darwin, who would later give the<br />
world the <strong>The</strong>ory <strong>of</strong> Evolution, thought thus in 1832. For Evolution was to provide a<br />
most powerful impetus to the second great wave <strong>of</strong> Romanticism in the second half <strong>of</strong><br />
the Nineteenth Century, and in the Twentieth Century up until the First World War.<br />
Friedrich Nieztsche, Rimbaud, and Lautréamont are among those who were thrilled<br />
and enthralled by the subversiveness, the struggle and challenge forced upon the human<br />
mind by Darwin; the complete decentering <strong>of</strong> man that his theory entailed – far more<br />
even than the Galilean-Newtonian revolution had, and the final defeat <strong>of</strong> theology<br />
that it appeared to them to represent.<br />
As for the influence <strong>of</strong> these last upon subsequent artists, poets, composers, and<br />
philosophers the list would be almost impossible to complete. Among them Otto Dix,<br />
Scriabin, Mahler, Richard Strauss, and the Surrealists stand out. But the influence <strong>of</strong><br />
Nietzsche especially on art and culture was and is immeasurable.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se remarks pertain to the worlds <strong>of</strong> literature, art, and philosophy: how equally<br />
much did Evolution transform all science itself, and <strong>no</strong>ne less than the human sciences.<br />
In his influence upon, and the admiration he induced in Karl Marx and Friedrich<br />
Engels, and in the emergence <strong>of</strong> Sociology and Anthropology as disciplines, Darwin<br />
was the Copernicus <strong>of</strong> the modern mind.<br />
But <strong>of</strong> course, the whole nature <strong>of</strong> the Beagle’s voyage must be borne in mind, as<br />
this is well summarized here by Gillian Beer (in an essay called Travelling <strong>The</strong> Other<br />
Way):<br />
“(Such) voyages......were those whose prize was represented as k<strong>no</strong>wledge rather than<br />
treasure. <strong>The</strong> categories are, however, <strong>no</strong>t altogether separate. Although the nineteenthcentury<br />
journeys that set out from Britain to survey the sea and coasts around the world<br />
were <strong>no</strong>t piratical, <strong>no</strong>t part <strong>of</strong> that unconcerned predation that earlier centuries justified<br />
as exploration or discovery, they were nevertheless an expression <strong>of</strong> the will to control,<br />
categorise, occupy and bring home the prize <strong>of</strong> samples and <strong>of</strong> strategic information.<br />
Natural history and national future were closely interlocked. And natural history was<br />
usually a sub-genre in the programme <strong>of</strong> the enterprize, subordinate to the search for<br />
sea-passages or the mapping <strong>of</strong> feasible routes and harbours.”<br />
Indeed, in their historical study Tierra del Fuego, Luiz and Schillat show that the<br />
Beagle voyages under Captain Fitzroy’s command were largely concerned with<br />
garnering information for the British Admiralty, as part <strong>of</strong> a widely-embracing concern<br />
in regard <strong>of</strong> strategies for British conquest, colonization, and control <strong>of</strong> trade in the<br />
Southern Atlantic.
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But to return again to Darwin’s account. <strong>The</strong> assertion that the <strong>no</strong>madic Yámana<br />
“can<strong>no</strong>t k<strong>no</strong>w the feeling <strong>of</strong> having a home” needs <strong>no</strong> further comment in the light <strong>of</strong><br />
the above; but that they k<strong>no</strong>w “still less that <strong>of</strong> domestic affection” enters the bizarre<br />
once again. Affections are dependent on staying indefinitely in one place? But in any<br />
case the touching accounts in the eth<strong>no</strong>graphic literature about how Selk’nam and<br />
Yámana men would set about looking for a wife, and how a woman indicated ‘yes’ or<br />
‘<strong>no</strong>’ to a man’s proposal (to be found in Wilson, op. cit.), suggest Darwin was wrong<br />
in assuming a lack <strong>of</strong> romantic affection among Fuegians. But his following phrase,<br />
“unless indeed the treatment <strong>of</strong> a master to a laborious slave can be considered as<br />
such”, I confess baffles me entirely. Who is the master and who the slave in the<br />
egalitarian societies <strong>of</strong> Tierra del Fuego? Perhaps Darwin means the people are like<br />
slaves before their natural environment, but in that case they are at least equal in their<br />
servitude, unlike in the England <strong>of</strong> 1832, where the majority <strong>of</strong> people were slaves<br />
towards both Nature and their human rulers.<br />
Gillian Beer (op. cit) sees these aspects <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s reactions in a rather different<br />
way from me. She considers that:<br />
“.....one <strong>of</strong> the most pressing issues raised by travels and their narratives in the nineteenth<br />
century (was).....what are the boundaries <strong>of</strong> natural history? Are human beings within its<br />
scope? Are they one species or several? Are they separate from all other species because<br />
created as souls by God? And do all, all savages, have souls? Or are they – here danger<br />
lies – a kind <strong>of</strong> animal? (If they, then we?)<br />
“Over and over again the narratives <strong>of</strong> voyages demonstrate how the borders <strong>of</strong> natural<br />
history were blurred by human encounter and how evolutionary theory pr<strong>of</strong>ited from<br />
that growing uncertainty about the status <strong>of</strong> the human in k<strong>no</strong>wledge and in nature.”<br />
She thus sees Darwin’s prejudices in relation to the scientific revolution he would<br />
later undertake:<br />
“Darwin’s encounters with Fuegians in their native place gave him a way <strong>of</strong> closing the<br />
gap between the human and other primates, a move necessary to the theories he was in<br />
the process <strong>of</strong> reaching.”<br />
Elsewhere she suggests:<br />
“Darwin’s much later <strong>The</strong> Expression <strong>of</strong> the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) may<br />
owe much to his puzzling experiences on the Beagle and be in part a final attempt to<br />
regulate the irregularities he had there encountered.”<br />
But, though it may be that on some unconscious level Darwin’s scientific mind<br />
was fomenting the utterly <strong>no</strong>vel worldview he would eventually promulgate, his account<br />
<strong>of</strong> Fuegian peoples in Voyage <strong>of</strong> the Beagle includes many tedious and prejudiced<br />
ideas about primitive people being inferior and degraded. <strong>The</strong> terms he deals in are<br />
ethical, and assume ‘civilization’ represents an indisputable improvement upon<br />
‘primitiveness’, which implicitly justifies arrogant and dictatorial behaviours, such as<br />
snatching people and taking them to England, or missionary activity intended to convert<br />
‘savages’ to Christianity and Western ways <strong>of</strong> behaving. <strong>The</strong> fact is that Darwin, neither<br />
in 1832 <strong>no</strong>r later when he formulated the theory <strong>of</strong> Evolution, had any clear idea <strong>of</strong><br />
the relationship between biological evolution, which had brought into being Man<br />
from its animal antecedents, and human history, the development <strong>of</strong> different cultures<br />
and civilizations within the general biological framework <strong>of</strong> the human species. And
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though it may be necessary <strong>no</strong>w, in the context <strong>of</strong> neo- or post-Darwinism, to understand<br />
that biological evolution can continue in interwoven relationship with the cultural<br />
and historical development <strong>of</strong> humanity, generally Darwinism has in the past failed,<br />
and still does fail <strong>no</strong>w, to distinguish between the two processes. From Darwin himself<br />
to Herbert Spencer, through to many Darwinian biologists who today attempt analyses<br />
<strong>of</strong> human history and society, the confusions are deep, and persist, as many writers<br />
have attempted to show. Darwin’s ‘swerving’, his ‘disturbance’(to use Beer’s words),<br />
in his meditations on the Fuegians, and their imagined similarity or difference from<br />
animals, is conducted in a confused, moralistic, and derogatory mode <strong>of</strong> thinking<br />
which is as common today as it was in Darwin’s own. It absolutely fails to see that<br />
different human societies have different cultures, different behaviours and different<br />
ethical systems and attitudes: conditioned greatly by natural and environmental factors<br />
and processes, in ways that are extremely complex, but again, <strong>no</strong>t in ways that mirror<br />
the environmental determinism <strong>of</strong> other animals’ physiology or behaviour.<br />
Human societies can only be judged one against a<strong>no</strong>ther according to the taste <strong>of</strong><br />
he or she who judges or according to ethical principles which should be made absolutely<br />
explicit in the course <strong>of</strong> making such judgements, and according to which certain<br />
Western cultures, vis-a-vis the morality <strong>of</strong> killing other human beings for example,<br />
would rank very low in any pan-human table <strong>of</strong> ethical comparison. Human beings<br />
are animals, yes, but as members <strong>of</strong> one animal species, Homo sapiens. Yet it is<br />
remarkable how <strong>of</strong>ten European or Neo-European individuals and nations that want<br />
to justify and rationalize their nastiest kinds <strong>of</strong> behaviour (ethically speaking), draw<br />
upon the fact that human beings are, after all animals.<br />
Major differences between human beings are either individual, or culturally based;<br />
though it is true that the roles <strong>of</strong> biology and genetics in understanding these differences<br />
are only just beginning to be understood.<br />
A NOTE ON H.W. BATES<br />
Two quotations from H.W. Bates’ science-cum-travelogue book <strong>The</strong> Naturalist<br />
On <strong>The</strong> River Amazons may suffice to indicate some <strong>of</strong> the differences between Bates’<br />
and Darwin’s approaches to the human dimensions <strong>of</strong> their experiences in South<br />
America. Bates certainly has some stereotypical European prejudices, and his<br />
perceptions are <strong>of</strong>ten constructed through characteristic nineteenth-century tropes,<br />
themes, vistas, and metaphors belonging to a British colonial view <strong>of</strong> ‘tropicality’,<br />
with his readership at home always in mind. But, like Alfred Russel Wallace, who<br />
also displayed “a somewhat baffling mixture <strong>of</strong> the conventional and the unconventional<br />
........ (in an attitude <strong>of</strong>) unsettled ambivalence” (as explained in Nancy Stepan’s book<br />
Picturing Tropical Nature), Bates has at the same time a spontaneous sympathy and<br />
empathy with people, and a more admiring attitude towards the people he meets, than<br />
Darwin evinces:<br />
(I) “On the morning <strong>of</strong> the 28th <strong>of</strong> May we arrived at our destination (Belém de Pará).<br />
<strong>The</strong> appearance <strong>of</strong> the city at sunrise was pleasing in the highest degree. It is built on a<br />
low tract <strong>of</strong> land, having only one small rocky elevation at its southern extremity; it<br />
therefore affords <strong>no</strong> amphitheatral view from the river; but the white buildings ro<strong>of</strong>ed<br />
with red tiles, the numerous towers and cupolas <strong>of</strong> churches and convents, the crowds <strong>of</strong>
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palm trees reared above the buildings, all sharply defined against the clear blue sky,<br />
give an appearance <strong>of</strong> lightness and cheerfulness which is most exhilarating. <strong>The</strong> perpetual<br />
forest hems the city in on all sides landwards; and towards the suburbs, picturesque<br />
country houses are seen scattered about, half buried in luxuriant foliage. <strong>The</strong> port was<br />
full <strong>of</strong> native ca<strong>no</strong>es and other vessels, large and small; and the ringing <strong>of</strong> bells and<br />
firing <strong>of</strong> rockets, an<strong>no</strong>uncing the dawn <strong>of</strong> some Roman Catholic festival day, showed<br />
that the population was astir at that early hour.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> impressions received during our first walk, on the evening <strong>of</strong> the day <strong>of</strong> our arrival,<br />
can never wholly fade from my mind. After traversing the few streets <strong>of</strong> tall, gloomy,<br />
convent-looking buildings near the port, inhabited chiefly by merchants and shopkeepers;<br />
along which idle soldiers, dressed in shabby uniforms, carrying their muskets carelessly<br />
over their arms, priests, negresses with red water-jars on their heads, sad-looking Indian<br />
women carrying their naked children astride on their hips, and other samples <strong>of</strong> the<br />
motley life <strong>of</strong> the place, were seen; we passed down a long narrow street leading to the<br />
suburbs. Beyond this, our road lay across a grassy common into picturesque lane leading<br />
to the virgin forest. <strong>The</strong> long street was inhabited by the poorer class <strong>of</strong> the population.<br />
<strong>The</strong> houses were <strong>of</strong> one story only, and had an irregular and mean appearance. <strong>The</strong><br />
windows were without glass, having, instead, projecting lattice casements. <strong>The</strong> street<br />
was unpaved, and inches deep in loose sand. Groups <strong>of</strong> people were cooling themselves<br />
outside their doors – people <strong>of</strong> all shades in colour <strong>of</strong> skin, European, Negro and Indian,<br />
but chiefly an uncertain mixture <strong>of</strong> the three. Amongst them were several handsome<br />
women, dressed in a slovenly manner, barefoot or shod in loose slippers; but wearing<br />
richly decorated ear-rings, and around their necks strings <strong>of</strong> very large gold beads. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
had dark expressive eyes, and remarkably rich heads <strong>of</strong> hair. It was a mere fancy, but I<br />
thought the mingled squalor, luxuriance and beauty <strong>of</strong> these women were pointedly in<br />
harmony with the rest <strong>of</strong> the scene; so striking, in the view, was the mixture <strong>of</strong> natural<br />
riches and human poverty. <strong>The</strong> houses were mostly in a dilapidated condition, and signs<br />
<strong>of</strong> indolence and neglect were everywhere visible. <strong>The</strong> wooden palings which surrounded<br />
the weed-grown gardens were strewn about, broken; and hogs, goats, and ill-fed poultry<br />
wandered in and out through the gaps. But amidst all, and compensating every defect,<br />
rose the overpowering beauty <strong>of</strong> the vegetation. <strong>The</strong> massive dark crowns <strong>of</strong> shady<br />
mangoes were seen everywhere amongst the dwellings, amidst fragrant blossoming<br />
orange, lemon, and many other tropical fruit trees; some in flower, others in fruit, at<br />
various stages <strong>of</strong> ripeness. Here and there, shooting above the more dome-like and<br />
sombre trees, were the smooth columnar stems <strong>of</strong> palms, bearing al<strong>of</strong>t their magnificent<br />
crowns <strong>of</strong> finely-cut fronds. Amongst the latter the slim assai-palm was especially<br />
<strong>no</strong>ticeable, growing in groups <strong>of</strong> four and five; its smooth, gently-curving stem, twenty<br />
to thirty feet high, terminating in a head <strong>of</strong> feathery foliage, inexpressibly light and<br />
elegant in outline.”<br />
(II) “I suffered most inconvenience from the difficulty <strong>of</strong> getting news from the civilized<br />
world down river, from the irregularity <strong>of</strong> receipt <strong>of</strong> letters, parcels <strong>of</strong> books and<br />
periodicals, and towards the latter part <strong>of</strong> my residence from ill health arising from bad<br />
and insufficient food. <strong>The</strong> want <strong>of</strong> intellectual society, and <strong>of</strong> the varied excitement <strong>of</strong><br />
European life, was also felt most acutely, and this, instead <strong>of</strong> becoming deadened by<br />
time, increased until it became almost insupportable. I was obliged, at last, to come to<br />
the conclusion that the contemplation <strong>of</strong> Nature alone is <strong>no</strong>t sufficient to fill the human<br />
heart and mind. I got on pretty well when I received a parcel from England by the<br />
steamer once in two or four months. I used to be very eco<strong>no</strong>mical with my stock <strong>of</strong><br />
reading, lest it should be finished before the next arrival, and leave me utterly<br />
destitute..............
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“During so long a residence I witnessed, <strong>of</strong> course, many changes in the place (the<br />
village <strong>of</strong> Ega, modern Tefé). Some <strong>of</strong> the good friends who made me welcome on my<br />
first arrival died, and I followed their remains to their last resting-place in the little<br />
rustic cemetery on the borders <strong>of</strong> the surrounding forest. I lived there long e<strong>no</strong>ugh, from<br />
first to last, to see the young people grow up, attended their weddings, and the christenings<br />
<strong>of</strong> their children, and before I left, saw them old married folks with numerous<br />
families.............<br />
“<strong>The</strong> people became more ‘civilized’, that is, they began to dress according to the latest<br />
Parisian fashions, instead <strong>of</strong> going about in stockingless feet, wooden clogs, and shirt<br />
sleeves; acquired a taste for money-getting and <strong>of</strong>fice-holding; became divided into<br />
parties, and lost part <strong>of</strong> their former simplicity <strong>of</strong> manners............<br />
“Many <strong>of</strong> the Ega Indians, including all the domestic servants, are savages who have<br />
been brought from the neighbouring rivers; the Japurá, the Issá, and the Solimoens..........<br />
most <strong>of</strong> whom had been bought, when children, <strong>of</strong> the native chiefs. This species <strong>of</strong><br />
slave dealing, although forbidden by the laws <strong>of</strong> Brazil, is winked at by the authorities,<br />
because without it there would be <strong>no</strong> means <strong>of</strong> obtaining servants......... But the boys<br />
generally run away and embark on the ca<strong>no</strong>es <strong>of</strong> traders; and the girls are <strong>of</strong>ten badly<br />
treated by their mistresses............”<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is a marvellous illustration in Bates’ <strong>The</strong> Naturalist On <strong>The</strong> River Amazons<br />
called Masked Dance And Wedding-Feast Of Tucuna Indians. Bates is pictured inside<br />
a Tucuna maloca, graciously and gratefully accepting something to eat from a<br />
handsomely depicted naked Indian woman with long black hair, which he seems to<br />
find delicious. He seems wholly at ease in the huge interior <strong>of</strong> the maloca, in which is<br />
taking place, without reference to him, a masked dance in costumes very like those<br />
one can see today in eth<strong>no</strong>graphic museums in Manaus or Leticia. <strong>The</strong> whole scene is<br />
certainly idealized and shaped into a European stylized ‘interior’, but it is also authentic<br />
in its depiction <strong>of</strong> someone in a hammock, and others up on a typical kind <strong>of</strong> structure<br />
made <strong>of</strong> wooden poles, from which also hang animal skins and on which a parrot<br />
perches. <strong>The</strong> whole scene is warm and convivial, suggesting that Bates’ hosts enjoy<br />
his presence as much as he enjoys their hospitality. And though it is slightly<br />
sentimentalized, the scene somehow resembles very much the indoor life <strong>of</strong> Amazonian<br />
Indians even today.<br />
POSTSCRIPT<br />
On a retrospective reading <strong>of</strong> this essay I wondered if I had been hard on Charles<br />
Darwin both in the sense <strong>of</strong> suspending recognition <strong>of</strong> the extent to which he, like<br />
anyone else, was a prisoner <strong>of</strong> his socio-historical context (though I tried to show that<br />
he could have embraced different attitudes), but also in the sense that further reading<br />
undertaken after I had already written the bulk <strong>of</strong> this essay indicated to me the extent<br />
<strong>of</strong> his enlightened, liberal, and humanitarian attitudes in certain other situations outside<br />
<strong>of</strong> his account <strong>of</strong> the Fuegians, both during the voyage <strong>of</strong> the Beagle and at other<br />
periods <strong>of</strong> his life. His argument with Captain Fitzroy in Brazil over slavery – Darwin<br />
against, Fitzroy in defence – which Darwin feared at first might require him to leave<br />
the voyage, is only one rather <strong>no</strong>ble example.<br />
Nevertheless, the central purpose in writing the essay was to show how narrow a<br />
view <strong>of</strong> the Fuegian Indians even a great genius could have, and how the contrast
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between his genius for scientific understanding <strong>of</strong> nature and his socially prejudiced<br />
views <strong>of</strong> a culture very different from his own, might be seen as deeply symptomatic<br />
<strong>of</strong> the horrible, tragic fact that one hundred years after Darwin’s encounter with them,<br />
‘progress’ in the surrounding and intruding semi-Westernized forms <strong>of</strong> society would<br />
result in their complete ge<strong>no</strong>cidal extermination or assimilation. It also allowed me,<br />
briefly at the end, to refer to the great importance <strong>of</strong> distinguishing biological evolution<br />
from human, social and cultural history, a highly problematical area that concerns the<br />
interface between the biological and the social sciences.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shadow <strong>of</strong> Perfection<br />
Peter J. James FLS<br />
2 St Edmund’s Terrace, Hunstanton, Norfolk PE36 5EH.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Jardin des Plantes faces the Quai St. Bernard and the River Seine to the N.E.<br />
Its other three sides are bounded by the Rue Cuvier, Rue Ge<strong>of</strong>froy St. Hilaire and the<br />
Rue Buffon. Just inside the main entrance stands a statue (erected by public<br />
subscription) <strong>of</strong> Lamarck. Leading to the whole complex is the Rue Linné. In contrast,<br />
our own Natural History Museum is confined by Exhibition Rd., Queen’s Gate and<br />
Imperial College. Of course, the French did have a Revolution in the wake <strong>of</strong> which<br />
all references to the monarchy were swept away. Even the Jardin itself had its name<br />
changed from du Roi to des Plantes. Does our lack <strong>of</strong> such a Revolution explain why<br />
Darwin Boulevard is <strong>no</strong>t a major thoroughfare in South Kensington’s ‘Albertopolis’?<br />
Alfred Waterhouse’s incredible romanesque masterpiece was intended as a ‘temple’<br />
to the vision <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s critic, Richard Owen, and poor Darwin’s statue until recently<br />
presided over the tea room whilst that <strong>of</strong> Owen commanded the grand staircase. In<br />
addition, the whole <strong>of</strong> the South Kensington site was a development celebrating<br />
imperialism, empire and the march <strong>of</strong> Human, specifically British, progress. <strong>The</strong><br />
museum was a ‘Bridgewater Treatise’ in terracotta or, as the Times <strong>of</strong> April 18 th 1881<br />
put it, ‘...a true Temple <strong>of</strong> Nature, showing, … beauty <strong>of</strong> Holiness’. And yet, it is<br />
worth sounding a sotto voce <strong>no</strong>te <strong>of</strong> paradox. <strong>The</strong> mighty 675 foot eastern entrance<br />
facade, originally with a statue <strong>of</strong> Adam atop its central gable, fronts the Cromwell<br />
Road named after Oliver, Lord Protector during England’s Interregnum. This period<br />
saw the repudiation <strong>of</strong> Divine Rights and <strong>of</strong> the perfect, static hierarchical structure<br />
which underlay both human society and, indeed, all <strong>of</strong> Nature. In addition, the Ruskinian<br />
ornamentation, which covers the museum, celebrates Nature’s diversity. It is, <strong>of</strong> course,<br />
the generative mechanism <strong>of</strong> that very diversity which Darwin made his life-long<br />
study and the heretical answers at which he arrived served, in <strong>no</strong> small measure, to<br />
dismantle the philosophy <strong>of</strong> ‘<strong>The</strong> rich man in his castle …’. So, perhaps, we do <strong>no</strong>t<br />
need a Darwin Boulevard after all or, indeed, any obvious public tokens <strong>of</strong> Charles<br />
Robert Darwin MA FLS FRS. His work and thoughts are still so much a part <strong>of</strong> the<br />
philosophy <strong>of</strong> the life sciences that he requires neither street names <strong>no</strong>r monumental<br />
statuary to celebrate his memory.
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By contrast, the works <strong>of</strong> the naturalist-philosophers, whose names surround the<br />
Jardin des Plantes, are <strong>no</strong>w only read by historians <strong>of</strong> science. Lamarck’s Philosophie<br />
Zoologique, published in the year <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s birth, 1809, the massive works <strong>of</strong> Buffon<br />
and the transcendental anatomy <strong>of</strong> St. Hilaire have all been sidelined. <strong>The</strong>se men were<br />
influential in their time but their approaches and philosophies have become<br />
superannuated. <strong>The</strong> works <strong>of</strong> Charles Robert Darwin, however, remain a living presence,<br />
embedded in our subconscious and, as Jim Secord has said, ‘his theory <strong>of</strong> evolution by<br />
natural selection is the coping stone <strong>of</strong> the modern life sciences’ although the January<br />
issue <strong>of</strong> the Scientific American, continuing the architectural analogy, depicts the Origin<br />
rather as the keystone. Most <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s twenty nine volumes are still available as hard<br />
copy and all are on the web. Darwin himself called the Origin ‘One long argument’; he<br />
was right, and although it is the ‘Origin’ whose sesquicentenary we celebrate this year,<br />
we should remember that, taken together, all his works form one long argument and the<br />
‘Origin’ should be placed in this context if we are to attempt any understanding <strong>of</strong><br />
Darwin’s thinking. To this end, over the years, much ink has been spilt in analysing the<br />
evolution <strong>of</strong> this truly incredible work. Again, there has been much scholarly speculation<br />
as to why Darwin delayed publication for twenty years. Due regard for his wife, Emma’s<br />
religious sensitivities? No. A digression on barnacles? Yes, to some extent. An attempt<br />
to distance himself from the radical left? Almost certainly. Darwin, although he denied<br />
it, was a very clever man, so perhaps the real answer is that he foresaw that by waiting,<br />
the bicentenary <strong>of</strong> his birth and the sesquicentenary <strong>of</strong> the Origin could be conveniently<br />
and therefore eco<strong>no</strong>mically – he’d read his Adam Smith – concelebrated in 2009 in the<br />
illustrious company <strong>of</strong> Henry VIII and the 500 th anniversary <strong>of</strong> his accession along with<br />
the <strong>25</strong>0 th <strong>of</strong> the founding <strong>of</strong> Kew Gardens as we k<strong>no</strong>w them. Whatever Darwin may or<br />
may <strong>no</strong>t have foreseen, these other events have, like the Origin <strong>of</strong> Species, opened the<br />
doors to two new worlds, the vernacular Bible and tropical biodiversity respectively. A<br />
web <strong>of</strong> connections link these events but our focus here is on Charles Darwin and on<br />
the doors he opened for us.<br />
In the late 1960’s an engineer colleague asked me ‘what was all this fuss about<br />
evolution?’ and could I recommend a book to enlighten him. <strong>The</strong> nearest to hand<br />
happened to be ‘Genetics, Palaeontology and Evolution’ edited by Jepsen, Simpson<br />
and Mayr, first published in 1949 but reprinted, unrevised, in 1963, four years after<br />
the centenary <strong>of</strong> the Origin celebrations. I lent my colleague this work and, several<br />
weeks later, he handed it back with the pithy comment ‘<strong>The</strong>y don’t k<strong>no</strong>w much do<br />
they?’ He did have a point and he followed in the tradition <strong>of</strong> engineers asking biologists<br />
awkward questions; remember Fleeming Jenkin and the famous opening line <strong>of</strong><br />
François Jacob’s paper at the 1982 centenary conference: ‘If an engineer were asked<br />
....to manufacture a frog, it seems unlikely that he would first design such a swimming<br />
precursor as a tadpole....’.<strong>The</strong> stated purpose <strong>of</strong> Genetics, Palaeontology and Evolution<br />
was to reunite the, by then, disparate specialisms <strong>of</strong> the title and to harness the results<br />
<strong>of</strong> such a reunification to clarify the mechanism <strong>of</strong> evolution. It was an ambitious task<br />
as, ‘<strong>The</strong> genetics <strong>of</strong> today traces the fact <strong>of</strong> evolution back to the existence <strong>of</strong><br />
ultramicroscopic bodies, the genes, ....’ (p.422). <strong>The</strong>re was <strong>no</strong> mention <strong>of</strong> nucleic<br />
acids, ribo- or deoxyribo- and, <strong>of</strong> course, <strong>no</strong> Hox boxes etc. etc.. True, these<br />
‘ultramicroscopic bodies’ were, by this time, firmly located in cell nuclei and, unlike<br />
Darwin’s hypothetical ‘gemmules’, they did <strong>no</strong>t float about freely and then fortuitously
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assemble in the reproductive organs at the right moment. Post the rediscovery <strong>of</strong><br />
Mendel’s work and A.C. Hardy’s mathematical analysis <strong>of</strong> gene flow, changes in gene<br />
frequency were measured using their phe<strong>no</strong>typic expression, but understanding at the<br />
molecular level had advanced little since Darwin’s day. It is indeed remarkable, in<br />
hindsight, that the ‘New Synthesis’ was achieved using this ‘Black Box’ approach in<br />
complete ig<strong>no</strong>rance <strong>of</strong> what the gene actually was. Just as Dalton’s atomic theory had<br />
<strong>of</strong>fered a numerical approach to chemistry in complete ig<strong>no</strong>rance <strong>of</strong> the nature <strong>of</strong><br />
atoms, so the ‘New Synthesis’ provided a mathematical tool for analysing Darwin’s<br />
Natural Selection; his preferred evolutionary mechanism. Moreover, these mathematics<br />
both underpinned gradualism and reconciled it with the existence <strong>of</strong> Mendel’s discrete<br />
particles, so long a contentious issue between the ‘Mendelians’ and the ‘Biometricians’.<br />
It is, perhaps, ironic that Hardy’s formulation, <strong>no</strong>w k<strong>no</strong>wn as the Hardy-Weinberg<br />
rule, rests on the bi<strong>no</strong>mial theorem with which, Darwin said, he ‘...had a special quarrel’<br />
(AB. p.114). So successful and influential did Population Genetics and the ‘New<br />
Synthesis’ become, – together they dominated the 1959 centenary despite a warning,<br />
a decade earlier, from C.H. Waddington that something was missing – that Ron<br />
Amundson, in his ground-breaking book <strong>The</strong> Changing Role <strong>of</strong> the Embryo in<br />
Evolutionary Thought (CUP 2005) argues that, what he calls, ‘Synthesis Historiography’<br />
(S.H.) has tinted the spectacles through which the real Charles Darwin and his<br />
predecessors are <strong>no</strong>w viewed. As a consequence, Amundson suggests that this S.H.<br />
bias has led evolutionists and historians alike to see both <strong>no</strong>nexistent philosophical<br />
flaws in Darwin’s approach and to downgrade the work <strong>of</strong> the comparative anatomists<br />
and embryologists. <strong>The</strong> two centenaries <strong>of</strong> 2009 and the concurrent rise <strong>of</strong> the discipline<br />
<strong>of</strong> ‘Evo-Devo’ provide an opportunity, Amundsen suggests, to reassess the master’s<br />
work using a new pair <strong>of</strong> spectacles and to trace the changes in perception through the<br />
centenaries <strong>of</strong> 1909, 1959 and 1982. We must, however, be careful <strong>no</strong>t to emulate<br />
George Orwell’s Winston Smith, in Nineteen Eighty Four, who constantly rewrote<br />
history in order to satisfy contemporary prejudices.<br />
Of his Cambridge days Darwin wrote, in his Autobiography, William Paley’s<br />
Natural <strong>The</strong>ology ‘… gave me as much delight as did Euclid’ (p.19). He went on to<br />
write that he regarded the works <strong>of</strong> these two authors as ‘…the only part <strong>of</strong> the<br />
academical course which, was <strong>of</strong> the least use to me in the education <strong>of</strong> my mind.’<br />
Although it was Paley’s Evidences <strong>of</strong> Christianity and his Moral Philosophy rather<br />
than his ‘Natural <strong>The</strong>ology’ which were the set texts, it was this latter which really<br />
impressed Darwin. It was Paley’s ‘clear language’ and ‘logic’ in all his works that<br />
Darwin admired although, he adds, ‘I did <strong>no</strong>t at that time trouble myself about Paley’s<br />
premises’ (AB p.59). So, ‘By answering well the examination questions in Paley, by<br />
doing Euclid well, and by <strong>no</strong>t failing miserably in Classics, I gained a good place<br />
among the hoi poIloi...’ (January 1831). He collected his degree in April <strong>of</strong> that year;<br />
‘…it cost £15: there is a waste <strong>of</strong> money.’ he wrote to his sister Caroline (Corr. <strong>Vol</strong>. I<br />
p.122). So, what next? Lord Goring, in Oscar Wilde’s Ideal Husband, says that, if a<br />
gentleman does <strong>no</strong>t go into politics then there is ‘….<strong>no</strong>thing left for him as a pr<strong>of</strong>ession<br />
except Botany or the Church’. Darwin was certainly a gentleman and, having become<br />
disillusioned by medicine at Edinburgh, his Cambridge years were intended to enable<br />
him to establish himself as a country vicar. Politics, it seems, was never an option so,<br />
to use one <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s favourite expressions, ‘in a large sense’ Botany it had to be. At
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this time there was <strong>no</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional career structure in the Natural Sciences, as we<br />
would understand it. Only those peripheral to medicine <strong>of</strong>fered any sort <strong>of</strong> opportunity,<br />
a fact that was to have important repercussions. Lord Goring was, however, wrong in<br />
seeing the Church and Botany as being mutually exclusive alternatives. Many country<br />
clergymen were also botanists vide Darwin’s Cambridge mentor. Rev. John Stevens<br />
Henslow, who held the University Chair in the subject. Darwin, as we k<strong>no</strong>w, inherited<br />
sufficient wealth and, by his own financial acumen acquired more, so as to obviate<br />
any need for him to earn a living at all. If it had been otherwise I would <strong>no</strong>t be writing<br />
this! Indeed, if Wedgwood had had to call in the administrators 200 years before they<br />
did (Times 7 Jan. 2009) or if Darwin had taken a fancy to medicine and followed his<br />
grandfather, father and elder brother into that pr<strong>of</strong>esssion, if Capt. Pringle Stokes had<br />
<strong>no</strong>t shot himself and/or Lieutenant Skyring had been ratified as the Beagle’s captain,<br />
or, even, if the Beagle had been able to explore the southern shores <strong>of</strong> Gondwanaland,<br />
who k<strong>no</strong>ws where we would be? <strong>The</strong> ‘ifs’ <strong>of</strong> history are frowned upon by historians<br />
but sometimes attempts to reconstruct these virtual scenarios enable us to focus on the<br />
reasons as to why certain things didn’t happen. One <strong>of</strong> the best <strong>of</strong> the crop <strong>of</strong> anniversary<br />
books this year is Nick Spencer’s Darwin and God. This work, by tracing in detail the<br />
reasons for the gradual erosion <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s faith, such as it ever was, prompts us to<br />
question how things would have worked out had Darwin <strong>no</strong>t been disillusioned by<br />
Christianity. However, the unexpurgated version (Nora Barlow, 1958) <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Autobiography makes it quite clear that he was so disillusioned and the rest is history.<br />
Darwin himself was <strong>no</strong>t averse to framing historical ‘if’ questions and certainly<br />
one <strong>of</strong> these, occasioned by his visit to Chile in March 1835, was to initiate a train <strong>of</strong><br />
thought the fruits <strong>of</strong> which we are still reaping. While near the town <strong>of</strong> Concepcion he<br />
witnessed an earthquake that devastated the area. This prompted Darwin to speculate<br />
on what sort <strong>of</strong> mayhem such a catastrophe would produce if it were to hit the British<br />
Isles. It would, he says, result in the destruction <strong>of</strong> private property, public buildings<br />
along with their records and, in short, destroy the whole, apparently stable, perfect<br />
and internal infrastructure <strong>of</strong> society within a few minutes and ‘...violence and rapine<br />
would remain uncontrolled. In every large town famine would go forth, pestilence<br />
and death following in its train’. He was deeply moved by what he saw and it ‘...cast<br />
shadows over the stable, ordered vision <strong>of</strong> nature that supposedly pointed directly to<br />
the deity that Darwin imbibed at Cambridge’ (Spencer p.27).<br />
<strong>The</strong> ‘Darwin Industry’ has provided us with an overwhelmingly massive literature<br />
on Darwin’s ‘Sea Change’. However, in summary, albeit an over simplistic one, by<br />
the time he docked at Falmouth on <strong>October</strong> 2 nd 1836 he had begun to ask how it was<br />
that clear evidence pointed to the fact that Nature was <strong>no</strong>t perfectly harmonious,<br />
anthropocentric, and stable, presided over by a benevolent Deity as depicted in the<br />
popular painting, by Edward Hicks. ‘<strong>The</strong> Peaceable Kingdom’ (1820). Nature was, in<br />
fact. dynamic, capricious and, above all, indifferent to human life. In fact, the very<br />
opposite to what his Anglican upbringing had led him to believe and which, up to that<br />
point, he had indeed believed. Charles Darwin had begun to frame some very difficult<br />
questions many <strong>of</strong> which we are still attempting to answer.<br />
It was the received wisdom surrounding the intertwined ideas <strong>of</strong> stability, perfection<br />
and purpose about which Darwin came to have doubts. Furthermore, he came to be
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 31<br />
Of making many books there is <strong>no</strong> end!<br />
acutely aware <strong>of</strong> the risks he ran by voicing these doubts. Perhaps too much has been<br />
made <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s confrontation with the Consensus Fidelium per se. Pius IX’s (1846-<br />
1878) Syllabus errorum and Quanta cura had made it quite clear that Holy Church set<br />
its face against all aspects <strong>of</strong> ‘Modernism’. Moreover Papa Ferretti conferred an Ho<strong>no</strong>rary<br />
Doctorate (1876) on St. George J. Mivart, one <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s most perceptive critics who,<br />
according to Darwin himself, says ‘ ...with uncommon cleverness all that is most<br />
disagreeable’ (Darwin to Hooker Sept. 16 th 1871) which was his way <strong>of</strong> saying ‘well<br />
bowled!’ In fact, Darwin took Mivart’s criticisms very seriously indeed particularly the<br />
one concerning the use <strong>of</strong> incipient stages <strong>of</strong> organs. Despite all this neither the Origin<br />
<strong>no</strong>r yet <strong>The</strong> Descent <strong>of</strong> Man was ever placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. <strong>The</strong><br />
Anglican Church may have huffed and puffed a little over doctrinal issues but the real<br />
conflict lay beneath these superficial posturings and is perhaps best encapsulated in<br />
<strong>Vol</strong>taire’s prophetic observation that one should <strong>no</strong>t blaspheme in front <strong>of</strong> the servants<br />
lest one day ‘they should cut all our throats’ (Quoted in Desmond p.120).<br />
In his Autobiography Darwin recollects that, on his return from his Beagle Voyage,<br />
he ‘ .. was also ambitious to take a fair place among scientific men, …’. But whom?<br />
<strong>The</strong> medical school Radicals or the Conservatives <strong>of</strong> the “Atheneum”? <strong>London</strong>, in the<br />
1830s and 1840s, was in as much <strong>of</strong> an intellectual ferment and political conflict as<br />
Paris had been in the 1130s. Kenneth Clark, in his magisterial work, Civilisation (1969),<br />
quotes the revolutionary writings <strong>of</strong> Peter Abelard – ‘I must understand in order that I<br />
may believe’ and, ‘By doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we perceive<br />
the truth’. He could well have been quoting Darwin when he opened his first <strong>no</strong>tebook<br />
on transmutation in July 1837 and <strong>no</strong>t Abelard in 1122. This understanding, however,<br />
had many facets and all <strong>of</strong> them had social and political price tags.<br />
Darwin was in an ambivalent position. He was a Whig gentleman with private
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means, a Cambridge graduate and, for five long years, had been the sailing companion<br />
<strong>of</strong> the aristocratic FitzRoy. In short, Charles Darwin was ‘blue chip’ Establishment<br />
yet he had begun asking those questions whose answers, whatever the final technical<br />
details turned out to be, he knew full well had the potential to blast away the foundations<br />
<strong>of</strong> that very society <strong>of</strong> which he was a member. Of course, having independent means<br />
meant that he did <strong>no</strong>t require either approval or patronage from anyone and yet, as a<br />
human being, neither did he seek to attract opprobium. He took pains to distance both<br />
himself and his nascent theory from any associations with the radical Left. <strong>The</strong> idea <strong>of</strong><br />
evolution, as distinct from its various postulated mechanisms, had been ‘in the air’ as<br />
Lyell put it, for nearly a century. Unfortunately its proponents had been those very<br />
maverick thinkers from whom Darwin wished to disassociate himself. One such<br />
maverick was William Lawrence whose book Lectures on Physiology, Zoology and<br />
the Natural History <strong>of</strong> Man (1822) had been de<strong>no</strong>unced as blasphemous and associated<br />
with the writngs <strong>of</strong> the ‘Infidel’ Tom Paine. It was refused copyright by the Lord<br />
Chancellor and was, <strong>of</strong> course, pirated (Darwin had a copy) and became hugely popular.<br />
Nevertheless it ruled out the possibility <strong>of</strong> ‘Evolution’ being judged dispassionately.<br />
To make matters worse Lawrence had been inspired by the works <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s own<br />
Grandfather, Erasmus, whose writings conveyed a suspicious scent <strong>of</strong> atheism and, as<br />
for his erotic botany….. In addition, the infamous ‘Vestiges’ was to give Darwin pause.<br />
Darwin thought <strong>of</strong> himself primarily, at least to start with, as a geologist and, on<br />
his return from the Voyage much <strong>of</strong> his work was geological and he became closely<br />
associated with his idol, Charles Lyell and with the <strong>London</strong> Geological <strong>Society</strong> with<br />
its ‘<strong>of</strong>ficial’ inductive or Baconian approach, a philosophy which Darwin claims to<br />
have adopted in his work on evolution. This was in sharp constrast to his Grandfather,<br />
Erasmus’ work in which, says Darwin ‘...the proportion <strong>of</strong> speculation being so large<br />
to the facts given.’ (AB p.49). Darwin wanted his theory to be seen to arise de <strong>no</strong>vo<br />
from objective observations unsullied by presuppositions and speculation. It wasn’t<br />
to be. Is it any wonder that he had his wife, Emma, place the 1844 Essay under lock<br />
and key, avoided the word ‘evolution’ and made only passing reference to man’s descent<br />
in the Origin? Darwin had become a reluctant subversive, a ‘Fifth Columnist’<br />
masquerading as a respectable country gentleman. Whether this ‘mimicry’ was, in the<br />
end, Batesian or Mullerian is, perhaps, an issue future historians may wish to debate.<br />
However, whether he liked it or <strong>no</strong>t Darwin’s theory was, as T.H. Huxley put it, to<br />
become ‘a veritable Whitworth gun in the armoury <strong>of</strong> liberalism’. (Huxley’s review<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Origin in Westminster Review NS 17 1860 pp.541-70. Quote p.541)<br />
No one, including Charles Darwin, can totally divest themselves <strong>of</strong> the beliefs<br />
which are part <strong>of</strong> their upbringing. One such belief was the doctrine <strong>of</strong> the fixity <strong>of</strong><br />
species and the trials and tribulations which Darwin underwent to dispose <strong>of</strong> it – ‘it is<br />
like confessing a murder’– have been fully, if <strong>no</strong>t over, documented. It seems, in<br />
retrospect, that neither Darwin <strong>no</strong>r his biographers need have borne such a burden,<br />
because Ron Amundsen has convincingly argued that the fixity <strong>of</strong> species, as an idea,<br />
goes back only as far as Linnaeus, who used it as a taxo<strong>no</strong>mic tool in his search for a<br />
‘Natural Classification’. It never was, it seems, a Divine edict. However, it is fair to<br />
speculate that, if Darwin had <strong>no</strong>t begun with this apparently ‘Straw Man’, Evolution<br />
and Natural Selection would have been still-born!
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<strong>The</strong> concept <strong>of</strong> Perfect adaptation is much more difficult and is very far from a<br />
satisfactory analysis. Darwin himself was loath to relinquish this belief as, indeed, are<br />
most <strong>of</strong> the natural history programmes aimed at the general public. Despite ‘<strong>The</strong><br />
Spandrels <strong>of</strong> San Marco’ (or were they really pendentives?) we still cling tenaciously<br />
to the <strong>no</strong>tions <strong>of</strong> purpose and <strong>of</strong> perfect adaptation perhaps because the alternatives to<br />
this ‘Panglossian paradigm’ are so subtle, complex and/ indeed, unacceptably bleak.<br />
‘<strong>The</strong> shadow <strong>of</strong> perfection’ is long and getting longer. It certainly was for Darwin.<br />
Whether or <strong>no</strong>t Darwin’s attitude to Perfect Adaptation stems from his youthful<br />
admiration <strong>of</strong> Paley’s works or whether he was, as Andrew Cunningham puts it,<br />
‘provisionally converted’ (Cunningham. 1981 p.96) is a matter for debate. However,<br />
it should be <strong>no</strong>ted that Paley himself presented the matter in a qualified manner.<br />
‘Contrivance, by its very definition and nature, is the refuge <strong>of</strong> imperfection’ (Paley<br />
vol.1 p.112). He felt that organisms were as perfect as they could be, given the<br />
constraints <strong>of</strong> the general laws <strong>of</strong> Nature ordained by God. In fact, what Paley was<br />
saying is that God was demonstrating his Wisdom and Intelligence to mankind by<br />
creating perfection despite those constraints but that this perfection could never be<br />
absolute. Paley’s discussion <strong>of</strong> the famous watch on the heath underlines this point.<br />
This qualification was, however, lost on his disciples and was far too subtle to use as<br />
a tool for ‘crowd control’. So it was that Paley’s ‘Natural <strong>The</strong>ology’ became a rich<br />
seam <strong>of</strong> examples illustrating perfect adaptation and the ‘Argument from Design’.<br />
<strong>The</strong> product <strong>of</strong> this mine were the nine volumes <strong>of</strong> the Bridgewater Treatises.<br />
Perfection is a difficult concept to apply to living organisms and its reality has<br />
usually been taken as an article <strong>of</strong> faith, based on the assumption that, since God had<br />
created all things, they could <strong>no</strong>t be other than perfect. This assumption <strong>of</strong>ten flew in<br />
the face <strong>of</strong> evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, in the pre-Darwinian world all<br />
organs and organisms were assumed to have purpose or ‘Final Cause’ and this was<br />
sufficient to explain all structure and function. This teleological approach, as it was<br />
called, had begun to be perceived as sterile some thirty years before Darwin’s final<br />
demolition, but it left, supposedly, perfect adaptation without an explanation. Erasmus<br />
Darwin’s co-member <strong>of</strong> the ‘Lunar <strong>Society</strong>’, James Watt, could define perfection very<br />
precisely in respect to his steam<br />
engines. One cylinder, full <strong>of</strong> steam,<br />
condensing to a perfect vacuum<br />
would yield maximum work. It was<br />
neat and numerical and suggested a<br />
route for achieving this ideal in<br />
engineering terms. In fact, via the<br />
Car<strong>no</strong>t cycle, steam engine<br />
tech<strong>no</strong>logy was to lead to the<br />
<strong>The</strong> earthworm’s challenge.
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THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
discipline <strong>of</strong> thermodynamics; a discipline which, in the 1980s, began to shed new<br />
light on the organisation <strong>of</strong> living organisms. <strong>The</strong> perfection <strong>of</strong> buildings also had a<br />
mathematical definition. Leon Battista Alberti, in the fifteenth century, defined<br />
perfection in architecture as a geometric construction in which all elements are<br />
proportioned exactly. <strong>The</strong>se proportions could, <strong>of</strong> course, be expressed mathematically<br />
as Euclidean ratios. On this definition, <strong>no</strong>thing could be added, diminished, or altered<br />
but for the worse. It could have been George Cuvier defining the body plan <strong>of</strong> one <strong>of</strong><br />
his embranchments and closing the gates on transmutation and, consequently, on<br />
evolution. <strong>The</strong> problem with the concept <strong>of</strong> perfection is that it implies stasis; systems<br />
at, or close to, equilibrium. Living organisms are systems very far from equilibrium<br />
and do <strong>no</strong>t behave like perfect engines and, unlike buildings, they have a life cycle.<br />
Jacob’s frog has <strong>no</strong> option but to be first a tadpole. Perfection, then, faced Darwin<br />
with three problems. First, was there any objective measure <strong>of</strong> perfection in living<br />
organisms? Second, how could a chancy process, such as Natural Selection, produce<br />
‘organs <strong>of</strong> extreme perfection’? How could that watchmaker have possibly been blind?<br />
Third, if organisms were indeed perfect, Cuvierian logic tells us that <strong>no</strong> further change<br />
is possible. Cuvier’s answer was, <strong>of</strong> course, catastrophism but, wedded as he was to<br />
Lyellian gradualism, this answer would <strong>no</strong>t do for Darwin. How to answer and to<br />
reconcile these conflicts was Darwin’s life’s work and, in the absence <strong>of</strong> any k<strong>no</strong>wn<br />
mechanism for heredity, his achievement is <strong>no</strong> less than breath-taking.<br />
Perfection, as we <strong>no</strong>w realise, does <strong>no</strong>t exist in the way that Paley, the authors <strong>of</strong><br />
the Bridgewater Treatises and Darwin himself, at least for a time, believed. <strong>The</strong> eye,<br />
Darwin’s bete <strong>no</strong>ire, is ‘jury rigged’, so are orchid flowers. Hiccups are the legacy <strong>of</strong><br />
our aquatic ancestry, diabetes is a hangover from leaner times and surely a rotary<br />
heart is mechanically preferable to a reciprocating one. Indeed, the whole new discipline<br />
<strong>of</strong> Darwinian medicine is a scion <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s realisation that evolution, by Natural<br />
Selection, could <strong>no</strong>t result in perfection but is only a mechanism for tracking<br />
environmental change given its inherited potential; remember those ‘ten thousand<br />
wedges’? Darwin well knew that Natural Selection was ‘Daily and hourly scrutinising,<br />
throughout the world, every variation;’ (Origin p.84). Furthermore those variations,<br />
although their causes were unk<strong>no</strong>wn to him, Darwin knew that they were expressed at<br />
all stages in the life cycle <strong>of</strong> an organism and that, therefore, the scope for Natural<br />
Selection to act was e<strong>no</strong>rmous. This resulted in ‘<strong>The</strong> Struggle for Existence’ being far<br />
more complex than his contemporaries ever realised, preferring, as we still do,<br />
Tennyson’s poetic, if simplistic and wholly misleading, ‘Nature red in tooth and claw’.<br />
.<strong>The</strong> power <strong>of</strong> Natural Selection and the resulting evolutionary divergence was very<br />
clear to Darwin but, he lamented, his contemporaries, even his staunchest allies, never<br />
really grasped the significance <strong>of</strong> it. Asa Gray even congratulated Darwin for<br />
reintroducing teleology and Lyell saw Natural Selection and the Principle <strong>of</strong> Divergence<br />
as alternatives! It was all too <strong>no</strong>vel. Darwin’s arguments lay outside the accepted<br />
philosophical framework and yet the language available to him was derived from that<br />
very framework. His term ‘Natural Selection’, as Gillian Beer has pointed out was<br />
‘...poised on the edge <strong>of</strong> metaphor...’ (Beer p.xviii).<br />
Darwin had come a long way from Paley’s watch, whose perfection, or approach<br />
to it, could only be assessed in the final product. When Darlington warned, in 1951,<br />
that something was missing from the ‘New Synthesis’ he was quite right; with
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 35<br />
population genetics, and its seductive mathematical underpinning, we had forgotten<br />
the organism and the relation between ge<strong>no</strong>type and phe<strong>no</strong>type. Of course, Darwin<br />
did <strong>no</strong>t, could <strong>no</strong>t, use these terms but he was fully aware <strong>of</strong> the importance Natural<br />
Selection had for ontogeny. With the advent <strong>of</strong> ‘Evo-Devo’ Darlington’s missing part<br />
has been found, but <strong>of</strong> course, it was there all the time, lying quietly in Chapter XIII <strong>of</strong><br />
the Origin. Perhaps, in this double-centenary year, we should all re-read the Origin<br />
with new eyes, without preconceptions, be open to Darwin’s plurality <strong>of</strong> thought and,<br />
above all, be thankful that Wallace wrote that letter and that the resulting publication<br />
wasn’t called ‘<strong>The</strong> Origin <strong>of</strong> Pigeons’. Who k<strong>no</strong>ws what treasures still lie there.<br />
Paley’s watch is probably still lying on that heath, as Darwin, late in life, showed<br />
that earthworm activity on heathland is poor (the pH is too low). It probably isn’t still<br />
ticking, it wasn’t perfect, after all, but if it were perhaps it would take us to the<br />
sesquicentenary <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s forgotten work on orchids in 2012. Who k<strong>no</strong>ws what<br />
revelations that might bring.<br />
This work is dedicated to my wife, Judith who has provided the commas, just as<br />
Emma did for Charles.<br />
SOURCES<br />
TITLE: Shakespeare’s Two Gentleman <strong>of</strong> Verona 1 Act III Sc.i. Valentine speaking <strong>of</strong> Sylvia.<br />
AMUNDSEN, R. (2005) <strong>The</strong> Changing Role <strong>of</strong> the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought: Roots<br />
<strong>of</strong> Evo-Devo. Cambridge University Press.<br />
ARTIGAS, M., CLICK, T.F. and MARTINEZ (2006) Negotiating Darwin: <strong>The</strong> Vatican<br />
confronts Evolution 1877-1902. John Hopkins Univ. Press. Chap 7 deals with Mivart.<br />
BARLOW, N. (1958) <strong>The</strong> Autobiography <strong>of</strong> Charles Darwin. Collins. All quotations are<br />
taken from this, the first complete version.<br />
BEER, G. (1983, 2000, 2009) Darwin’s Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George<br />
Eliot and Nineteenth Century Fiction. Cambridge Univ. Press. 3rd Ed.<br />
CARROLL, S.B. (2006) <strong>The</strong> making <strong>of</strong> the fittest: DNA and the ultimate forensic record <strong>of</strong><br />
evolution. Quercus. One <strong>of</strong> the best available works which links Darwin with modern<br />
genetics.<br />
CUNNINGHAM, A. (1981) Sydenham versus Newton: the Edinburgh fever dispute <strong>of</strong> the<br />
1690s between Andrew Brown and Archibald Pitcairne. Med. Hist. Suppl. <strong>no</strong>.l pp.71-98.<br />
DARWIN, C. <strong>The</strong> Correspondence <strong>of</strong> Charles Darwin. Cambridge Univ. Press.<br />
DARWIN, C. (1859) On the Origin <strong>of</strong> Species, facsimile <strong>of</strong> the First Edition. All quotes and<br />
pagination refer to this work.<br />
DESMOND, A. (1989) <strong>The</strong> Politics <strong>of</strong> Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in<br />
Radical <strong>London</strong>. Univ. Chicago Press.<br />
GOULD, S.J. and LEWONTIN, R.C. (1979) <strong>The</strong> spandrels <strong>of</strong> San Marco and the<br />
Panglossian paradigm: A critique <strong>of</strong> the adaptationist programme. Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond.<br />
B 205 pp. 581-598.<br />
NICHOLLS, H. (2009) A Flight <strong>of</strong> Fancy. Nat. 457. <strong>no</strong>. 7231. Feb. 12th. pp.790-791. In this<br />
article the author poses the ‘if’ question: what if Murray had accepted the advice that the<br />
Origin “should have been entitled ‘<strong>The</strong> Origin <strong>of</strong> Pigeons’?”<br />
SPENCER, N. (2009) Darwin and God. SPCK.
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Darwin’s Lichens<br />
David J. Galloway, FLS<br />
Landcare Research, Private Bag 1930, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand<br />
(gallowayd@xtra.co.nz)<br />
Introduction<br />
In 1992-1993, I helped the late Pr<strong>of</strong>. David L. Yudilevich (1930-2006) (see Mann<br />
2006) coordinate an international symposium, “Darwin and the Beagle in Chile:<br />
Evolution Today”, at the University <strong>of</strong> Chile in Santiago, Chile (29 September-1<br />
<strong>October</strong> 1993) as part <strong>of</strong> the ICSU General Assembly meetings held at that time in<br />
Santiago. <strong>The</strong> symposium was wide-ranging, covering the major themes <strong>of</strong> Geology,<br />
Palaeontology, Evolution & Genetics, Botany, Zoology, Ecology, Medicine &<br />
Psychology, Anthropology, History, Philosophy and Religion. To this symposium I<br />
contributed an account <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s lichens (Galloway 1993a). Although David<br />
Yudilevich later produced a fine book on Darwin in Chile (Yudilevich & Castro Le-<br />
Fort (1995), based very much on the Symposium and its associated Darwin Exhibition<br />
(to which the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> contributed a life-size copy <strong>of</strong> the Collier portrait <strong>of</strong><br />
Darwin from the <strong>Society</strong>’s Meeting Room) which was assembled in the Patio Ignacio<br />
Domeyko <strong>of</strong> the University <strong>of</strong> Chile, <strong>no</strong>ne <strong>of</strong> the papers contributed to the Symposium<br />
were published, hence this account <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s lichens in a revised form in this his<br />
bicentennial year.<br />
How I first became aware <strong>of</strong>, and interested in, Darwin’s lichens is quite a diverting<br />
story. Early in 1973 when I began work on a New Zealand Lichen Flora at the then<br />
British Museum (Natural History), I was disappointed at <strong>no</strong>t being able to find any <strong>of</strong><br />
Banks and Solander’s New Zealand lichen specimens, even though the Slip Catalogue<br />
in the Botany Library indicated that they had collected a few lichens from New Zealand<br />
on the Endeavour voyage (Galloway 1998a). Peter James, then Head <strong>of</strong> the Lichen<br />
Section, suggested that I look in the Botany storeroom at the top <strong>of</strong> the western central<br />
tower above the Museum entrance, as he thought that there could be early,<br />
unincorporated material to be found there. Early material there certainly was, in crazily<br />
stacked and disintegrating cardboard boxes perched on rusting shelving under one <strong>of</strong><br />
the large water tanks. Occasional leaks from the tanks over the years, plus debris from<br />
starling nests (a broken window pane had allowed easy entry for the birds!) contributed<br />
to the scene <strong>of</strong> mild devastation and chaos, almost more reminiscent <strong>of</strong> Miss Havisham’s<br />
dining room than a Museum storeroom. But what treasures were forthcoming! <strong>The</strong>re<br />
I found the missing Banks and Solander lichens and a box marked “Darwin’s Lichens”.<br />
When I brought this box down to the Lichen Section Peter said disarmingly “Oh, I<br />
rather thought they must have been somewhere”! <strong>The</strong> box, evidently Henslow’s<br />
specimens that had been sent to Kew, contained a number <strong>of</strong> specimens on small<br />
pieces <strong>of</strong> yellow paper with inked an<strong>no</strong>tations and also a full sheet <strong>of</strong> Sticta divulsa<br />
(Fig. 1) collected by Darwin from the Cho<strong>no</strong>s Archipelago, that I was later to select as<br />
lectotype (Galloway 1992a: 97). But it was <strong>no</strong>t until my first collecting visit to Chile<br />
in 1986, that I realised just how important these old abandoned Darwin lichen specimens<br />
might be.
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 37<br />
Fig. 1. Darwin’s 1834 collection <strong>of</strong> Pseudocyphellaria divulsa from the<br />
Cho<strong>no</strong>s Archipelago, southern Chile (BM)
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THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
In order to set Darwin’s lichens in their correct historical and geographical<br />
perspective, a few basic questions should be considered. (1): What was k<strong>no</strong>wn <strong>of</strong><br />
lichens worldwide and who were the leading liche<strong>no</strong>logists in the early 1830s when<br />
Darwin was contemplating his forthcoming long voyage on the Beagle from 1832-<br />
1836? (Barlow 1945; Keynes 1988, 2002; Browne 1995); (2): What was k<strong>no</strong>wn <strong>of</strong> the<br />
lichens <strong>of</strong> South America at the time <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s visit? (3): How much might Darwin<br />
have k<strong>no</strong>wn about lichens at the time <strong>of</strong> the voyage?<br />
(1) As a student at Cambridge (1828-1831), Darwin was greatly influenced by the<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> Botany, John Stevens Henslow, who was both his mentor and friend<br />
(Barlow 1967; Browne 1995; Walters & Stow 2001). Liche<strong>no</strong>logy in Britain was then<br />
at a low ebb (Hawksworth & Seaward 1977; Laundon & Waterfield 2007). Three<br />
decades earlier, the Swedish liche<strong>no</strong>logist, Erik Acharius (1757-1819), Linnaeus’s<br />
last student (Kärnefelt & Frödén 2007), had set systematic liche<strong>no</strong>logy on a bright<br />
new path when he segregated Linnaeus’s collective genus Lichen into smaller<br />
independent genera, consolidating his new arrangement in three important foundational<br />
books, the Methodus (Acharius 1803), Liche<strong>no</strong>graphia Universalis (Acharius 1810)<br />
and the Sy<strong>no</strong>psis methodica lichenum (Acharius 1810). His ideas were quickly taken<br />
up in Britain by Dawson Turner and William Borrer, and then W.J. Hooker (Hooker<br />
1829-1866; Turner & Borrer 1839; Hawksworth & Seaward 1977; Galloway 1981a,<br />
1988; Seaward 2002; Laundon & Waterfield 2007), but much less enthusiastically by<br />
James Edward Smith, who, while admiring Acharius’s k<strong>no</strong>wledge and industry, would<br />
<strong>no</strong>t subscribe to the new segregate genera. On receiving a copy <strong>of</strong> Acharius’s Methodus<br />
he wrote to Acharius in 1804 explaining his conservative position “… do <strong>no</strong>t blame<br />
me if my opinion on speculative points differs sometimes from yours. Neither dare I<br />
change names so freely as you have done. I must keep in view those Laws <strong>of</strong> Linnaeus<br />
which are sanctioned by experience and founded in justice…It is easy e<strong>no</strong>ugh to use<br />
new words. Genius appears best in using old ones properly…I regret that there should<br />
be a word in your excellent book that I can<strong>no</strong>t zealously defend as a friend ought: but<br />
I k<strong>no</strong>w we can<strong>no</strong>t all think alike in philosophy any more than in religion…” (Galloway<br />
1988: 165).<br />
Acharius’s world view <strong>of</strong> lichens in 1814 amounted to 906 species in 43 genera<br />
(Acharius 1814; Kärnefelt & Frödén 2007) and by the early 1830s, the number <strong>of</strong><br />
species was slowly starting to grow, when the impetus for lichen taxo<strong>no</strong>my passed<br />
from Sweden to France and Germany, with the work <strong>of</strong> such liche<strong>no</strong>logists as Fée<br />
(1824-1837), Eschweiler (1824), Wallroth (1824) and Delise (18<strong>25</strong>a, 18<strong>25</strong>b) creating<br />
new names and opening up new vistas. But liche<strong>no</strong>logy remained poised, waiting for<br />
a catalyst to open the still-closed book <strong>of</strong> Southern Hemisphere liche<strong>no</strong>logy. As we<br />
shall see, Darwin was to be very much part <strong>of</strong> that necessary catalyst.<br />
(2) When the Beagle sailed from Plymouth on 27 December 1831 bound initially<br />
for southern South America via the Cape Verde Islands and Brazil, what in fact was<br />
k<strong>no</strong>wn <strong>of</strong> the lichens <strong>of</strong> South America? Not a lot. From Commerson’s collections<br />
made from the Straits <strong>of</strong> Magellan in 1767, Jacquin (1781) described Lichen aurantiacoater<br />
[= Usnea aurantiaco-atra (Walker 1985: 62)] and L. antarcticum [= Nephroma<br />
antarcticum (White & James 1988)]. Cook’s three voyages yielded several collections<br />
from Banks & Solander, the Forsters & Sparrman and Anderson, but only one species
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 39<br />
was named from these collections, George Forster’s Lichen berberinus [=<br />
Pseudocyphellaria berberina (Forster 1787; Galloway & James 1977; Galloway<br />
1981b)]. <strong>The</strong> Scottish botanist Archibald Menzies, Captain Colnett’s surgeon, spent<br />
17 days in New Year’s Harbour, Staten Island early in 1787 and during that time he<br />
collected 32 taxa in 19 genera (Galloway 1995b), with 5 <strong>of</strong> these subsequently being<br />
described by Acharius (1803). Delise (18<strong>25</strong>a, 18<strong>25</strong>b) named two species <strong>of</strong> Sticta<br />
from the southern zone, S. endochrysa [= Pseudocyphellaria endochrysa] from the<br />
Falkland Islands (see also Gaudichaud 1827) and Sticta faveolata [= P. faveolata]<br />
from the Straits <strong>of</strong> Magellan (Galloway & James 1986). Several tropical species are<br />
found in the works <strong>of</strong> Kunth (1822), Fée (1824) and Hooker (1829; Galloway 1995a),<br />
and that was pretty much the lichen record for South America. It is therefore very<br />
apparent just what a clean slate, in liche<strong>no</strong>logical terms, Darwin had as a collector.<br />
(3) It is likely that Darwin would have k<strong>no</strong>wn only very little about lichens when<br />
he boarded the Beagle. Perhaps he may have skimmed through the 5 th edition <strong>of</strong> James<br />
Edward Smith’s Botany textbook that Henslow used in his courses at Cambridge (see<br />
Walters & Stow 2001). This book – Introduction to Physiological and Systematical<br />
Botany – originally published early in the 19 th century (Smith 1807), discussed lichens<br />
as part <strong>of</strong> the Algae (as did Linnaeus) and although ack<strong>no</strong>wledging the recent works<br />
<strong>of</strong> Acharius (Acharius 1799, 1803) Smith was cautious, if <strong>no</strong>t suspicious, <strong>of</strong> the Swede’s<br />
radical ideas and termi<strong>no</strong>logy and maintained his conservative view <strong>of</strong> Lichens being<br />
classified in the collective genus Lichen (see also Smith & Sowerby 1790-1814;<br />
Galloway 1981a, 1988; Laundon 2005). <strong>The</strong> Beagle library had the 17-volume<br />
Dictionnaire Classique d’Histoire Naturelle edited by Bory de Saint-Vincent (1822-<br />
1831) on its shelves (Burkhardt & Smith 1985: 558-565), and in this work the account<br />
<strong>of</strong> Lichens was written by the Strasbourg liche<strong>no</strong>logist, Apollinaire Fée (Fée 1826) an<br />
altogether more progressive account. In the Dictionnaire essay, Fée adopted the system<br />
<strong>of</strong> classification used in his two-volume work on the lichen epiphytes <strong>of</strong> Cinchona<br />
bark and other trees with pharmaceutical properties (Fée 1824). His arrangement<br />
incorporated contemporary results <strong>of</strong> Fries (1821), Eschweiler (1824) and Wallroth<br />
(1824) and benefited from Fée’s own discussions with Bory, Delise, Dufour and<br />
Persoon. For its time, it would have been one <strong>of</strong> the most modern treatments <strong>of</strong> lichens<br />
available. In addition, the Dictionnaire also contained accounts <strong>of</strong> individual lichen<br />
genera compiled by Bory (<strong>of</strong>ten from his own collections and containing many<br />
<strong>no</strong>velties) and by Fée, so that Darwin, should he have felt the need to consult these,<br />
would have been reasonably well catered for in terms <strong>of</strong> what was k<strong>no</strong>wn <strong>of</strong> <strong>no</strong>n-<br />
European lichens. But that is <strong>no</strong>t really saying very much, for in 1832 comparatively<br />
little was k<strong>no</strong>wn <strong>of</strong> the lichens <strong>of</strong> the southern zone and the Pacific (Galloway 1985).<br />
It was still largely “terra incognita”, but Darwin and a little later, Joseph Hooker, were<br />
soon to change all that.<br />
Darwin’s lichen collections<br />
For most <strong>of</strong> the Beagle voyage Darwin was an industrious and conscientious<br />
collector (see Porter 1980, 1985, 1987: Browne 1995; Keynes 2002), so it is scarcely<br />
surprising that his collecting canvas should extend to lichens, especially in places<br />
(e.g. in Tierra del Fuego and in the dripping rainforests <strong>of</strong> Chiloe and the Cho<strong>no</strong>s<br />
Archipelago) where they form prominent and characteristic components <strong>of</strong> the
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vegetation, a view encouraged by Henslow in a letter to Darwin written on 15 January<br />
1833 “…<strong>The</strong> Lichens are good things as scarcely any one troubles himself to send<br />
them home…” (Burkhardt & Smith 1985: 294; Porter 1987: 149). Darwin’s lichens<br />
were sent by Henslow to the mycologist M.J. Berkeley, Darwin <strong>no</strong>ting in a letter to<br />
Joseph Hooker on 11 January 1844 “…My cryptogamic collection was sent to Berkeley;<br />
it was <strong>no</strong>t large; I do <strong>no</strong>t believe he has yet published an account but he wrote to me<br />
some year ago that he had described & mislaid all his descriptions. W d it <strong>no</strong>t be well<br />
for you to put yourself in communication with him; as otherwise some things will<br />
perhaps be twice laboured over. – My best (though poor) collection <strong>of</strong> the Cryptogam.<br />
was from the Cho<strong>no</strong>s Islands…” (Burkhardt & Smith 1987: 2).<br />
On 29 January 1844 Hooker wrote to Darwin “…M r Berkeley was with us shortly<br />
before your letter arrived, & I gave him all my Fungi, he has returned me for M r<br />
Henslow your Lichens, which he had; but said <strong>no</strong>thing about the other orders in his<br />
possession…”(Burkhardt & Smith 1987: 6). Thus, Darwin’s lichens went to Kew<br />
where Hooker made extensive use <strong>of</strong> them during the preparation <strong>of</strong> his Flora<br />
Antarctica, the first part <strong>of</strong> his Botany <strong>of</strong> the Antarctic Voyage. Hooker enlisted the<br />
help <strong>of</strong> the Irish liche<strong>no</strong>logist, Thomas Taylor for determination <strong>of</strong> his lichen collections<br />
from the southern zone (Hooker & Taylor 1844), and Taylor later described several<br />
new species from Darwin’s Beagle collections (Taylor 1847 – see below).<br />
Taylor’s lichens, which include duplicates <strong>of</strong> some Darwin collections, are held in<br />
the Farlow Herbarium <strong>of</strong> Harvard University (FH), but the bulk <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s lichens<br />
are to be found scattered through the General Collection, and in the unincorporated<br />
collections <strong>of</strong> the Lichen Section <strong>of</strong> the Natural History Museum in <strong>London</strong> (BM). An<br />
additional, and as yet untapped, source <strong>of</strong> Darwin lichens is also in the Natural History<br />
Museum. On Darwin’s rock specimens held in the basement corridor drawers <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Department <strong>of</strong> Mineralogy, many <strong>of</strong> them from remote places never visited (or likely<br />
to visited) by a liche<strong>no</strong>logist, there are sometimes mosaics <strong>of</strong> lichens present. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
Darwin specimens would richly repay a liche<strong>no</strong>logist’s attention. Notes on the various<br />
Darwin lichen collections that I was able to find in the BM between 1973 and 1994,<br />
supplemented with relevant accounts from the literature are given below.<br />
1. Fernando de Noronha: On 19 February 1832, the Beagle was <strong>of</strong>f Fernando de<br />
Noronha, Darwin <strong>no</strong>ting in his Diary “... An hour before sunset Fernando was clearly<br />
visible – it appears an extraordinary place, – there is one l<strong>of</strong>ty mountain that at a<br />
distance looks as if it were overhanging…”. <strong>The</strong> next day Darwin spent a few hours<br />
on the island, commenting his Diary “…I spent a most delightful day in wandering<br />
about the woods. – <strong>The</strong> whole island is one forest, & is so thickly intertwined that it<br />
requires great exertion to crawl along….I am glad that I have seen these islands, I<br />
shall enjoy the greater wonders [<strong>of</strong> the tropical rainforest] all the more from having a<br />
guess what to look for…” (Keynes 1988: 39). And in his Journal he <strong>no</strong>ted “…<strong>The</strong><br />
whole island is covered with wood; but from the dryness <strong>of</strong> the climate there is <strong>no</strong><br />
appearance <strong>of</strong> luxuriance…” (Darwin 1845). From the highest peak he collected the<br />
basidiolichen Dictyonema glabratum (Berkeley 1842: 445 – recorded as Cora pavonia<br />
– see also Porter 1987: 158).<br />
2. Brazil: on 5 April 1832 the Beagle landed at Rio de Janeiro and stayed there<br />
until 5 July. Darwin’s Brazilian lichen collections [the specimens seen in BM have a
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printed label “from J.S. Henslow” to which Henslow has added in pencil “Rio Jan . .<br />
May 1832” and a collection number] include the following taxa: Coe<strong>no</strong>gonium,<br />
Diploschistes, Pseudocyphellaria aurora (Galloway 1993b), Ramalina usnea [Henslow<br />
No. 493] and Teloschistes flavicans [Henslow No. 486].<br />
3. Uruguay: On 28 July 1832, Darwin wrote in his Diary <strong>of</strong> a visit to Monte<br />
Video, “…Landed early in the morning on the Mount. This little hill is about 450 feet<br />
high & being by far the most elevated land in the country gives the name Monte<br />
Video. – <strong>The</strong> view from the summit is one <strong>of</strong> the most uninteresting I ever beheld. –<br />
Not a tree or a house or trace <strong>of</strong> cultivation give cheerfulness to the scene…yet there<br />
is a charm in the unconfined feeling <strong>of</strong> walking over the boundless turf plain…”<br />
(Keynes 1988: 85-86).<br />
From Monte Video Darwin collected two lichens. Both were later described by<br />
the Irish liche<strong>no</strong>logist, Thomas Taylor (1847 – see also Sayre 1982, 1987) as Parmelia<br />
fistulata Taylor and Usnea densirostra Taylor, and are well-k<strong>no</strong>wn taxa in the Uruguyan<br />
lichen mycobiota (Osorio 1972, 1992, 2009). Parmelia fistulata has had a somewhat<br />
complicated <strong>no</strong>menclatural life, subsequently being transferred to the genera<br />
Everniastrum and Concamerella before being recently assigned to Parmotrema (Blanco<br />
et al. 2005: 157). Usnea densirostra, a saxicolous lichen, is the only species <strong>of</strong> Usnea<br />
to have a common name in Uruguay (Osorio 1982), being k<strong>no</strong>wn there as “Yerba de la<br />
Piedra” (Stone Grass, or Herb <strong>of</strong> the Rock). In 1987 for the Sesquicentenary <strong>of</strong> the<br />
National Museum <strong>of</strong> Natural History in Montevideo, the Government <strong>of</strong> Uruguay<br />
issued the first postage stamp commemorating a lichen, <strong>no</strong>ne other than Usnea<br />
densirostra, the Yerba de la Piedra first collected by Darwin 155 years before. <strong>The</strong><br />
same species is also used as a monitor <strong>of</strong> heavy metal pollution in semi-arid<br />
environments in Argentina (Bernasconi et al. 2000), something Darwin would never<br />
have dreamed <strong>of</strong>!<br />
4. Tierra del Fuego: <strong>The</strong> Beagle anchored in Good Success bay <strong>of</strong>f the coast <strong>of</strong><br />
Tierra del Fuego on 16 December 1832 and left for the Falkland Islands on 26 February<br />
1833 (Burkhardt & Smith 1985: 540). It was here, among the channels and islands <strong>of</strong><br />
the uttermost south <strong>of</strong> South America that lichens made their biggest impact on Darwin<br />
since they are <strong>of</strong>ten conspicuous elements <strong>of</strong> both the coastal and alpine vegetation.<br />
Darwin would also have been conscious <strong>of</strong> the fact that Tierra del Fuego had seen a<br />
succession <strong>of</strong> botanists for at least 60 years preceding him, from Commerson through<br />
Banks and Solander to the Forsters, Sparrman, Anderson and Menzies (Moore 1983)<br />
– it was <strong>no</strong>t at all “terra ingonita” even for lichens. But it was undoubtedly stimulating,<br />
dangerous and exciting country to be exploring. In his Diary, writing <strong>of</strong> the dense<br />
Fuegian coastal forest Darwin <strong>no</strong>ted “…<strong>The</strong>ir curved & bent trunks are coated with<br />
lichens, as their roots are with moss…” (Keynes 1988: 126), and further, “…<strong>The</strong><br />
appearance <strong>of</strong> these forests brought to my mind the artificial woods at Mount<br />
Edgecombe: the greenness <strong>of</strong> the bushes & the twisted forms f the trees, covered with<br />
Lichens, in both places are caused by strong prevalent winds & great dampness <strong>of</strong><br />
climate…” (Porter 1987: 166).<br />
All <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s lichen collections so far seen, are labelled from “South part <strong>of</strong><br />
Tierra del Fuego 1833. C. Darwin”. His collections comprise the following: Cladia<br />
aggregata, Pseudocyphellaria berberina [Henslow Nos 472 pr.p., 473, 474 pr.p.], P.
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freycinetii [Henslow No. 472 pr.p., 474 pr.p.] (Galloway 1992a) from the forest, and<br />
Usnea auratiaco-atra from rocks. This last lichen (Fig. 2), is characteristic <strong>of</strong> exposed<br />
rocks above treeline in southern South America (Walker 1985), where it <strong>of</strong>ten forms<br />
extensive swards. It was vividly described from the Falklands and southern South<br />
America by Joseph Hooker (1847: 520-521) whose perceptive comments are still<br />
well worth reading, and it was undoubtedly the lichen that Darwin referred to in his<br />
Diary entry for 20 December 1832, when he wrote: “…I was very anxious to ascend<br />
some <strong>of</strong> the mountains in order to collect the Alpine plants & insects. – <strong>The</strong> one which<br />
I partly ascended yesterday was the nearest, & Capt. FitzRoy thinks it is certainly the<br />
one which M r Banks ascended, although it cost him the lives <strong>of</strong> two <strong>of</strong> his men & very<br />
nearly that <strong>of</strong> D r Solander… I had imagined the higher I got, the more easy the ascent<br />
would be, the case however was reversed…I hailed with joy the rocks covered with<br />
Lichens & soon was at the very summit. – <strong>The</strong> view was very fine, especially <strong>of</strong><br />
Staten Land [where Menzies had made a rich collection <strong>of</strong> lichens in 1787 (Galloway<br />
& Groves 1987; Galloway 1995b)] & the neighbouring hills; Good Success Bay with<br />
the little Beagle were close beneath me…” (Keynes 1988: 126).<br />
5. Falkland Islands: <strong>The</strong> Beagle visited the Falkland Island twice, in 1833 from 1<br />
March until 6 April, and again in 1834 from 10 March until 8 April (Darwin 1845;<br />
Godley 1965; Keynes 1979, 1988; Burkhardt & Smith 1985). Darwin described the<br />
country in his Journal as “…An undulating land, with a desolate and wretched aspect,<br />
is everywhere covered by a peaty soil and wiry grass, <strong>of</strong> one mo<strong>no</strong>to<strong>no</strong>us brown<br />
colour…” (Darwin 1845), and in his Diary for 3 March “…Took a long walk; this side<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Island is very dreary… <strong>The</strong> whole landscape from the uniformity <strong>of</strong> the brown<br />
color, has an air <strong>of</strong> extreme desolation…” (Keynes 1988: 145). From a stay on the<br />
Fig. 2. Darwin’s 1833 collection <strong>of</strong> Usnea aurantiaco-atra from Tierra del Fuego (BM)
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islands <strong>of</strong> 66 days, Darwin collected only two lichens, both from Berkeley Sound [the<br />
labels give as locality data “Berkley [sic] Sound, Falkland Island, March 1833, C.<br />
Darwin”], Pseudocyphellaria crocata [Henslow No. 498], growing in grassland, and<br />
Ramalina terebrata from coastal rocks.<br />
6. Punta Tres Montes and the Cho<strong>no</strong>s Archipelago: In a letter to his sister Catherine,<br />
from Valparaiso on 8 November 1834, Darwin wrote “…Hurra! Hurra! It is fixed the<br />
Beagle shall <strong>no</strong>t go one mile South <strong>of</strong> Cape Tres Montes (about 200 miles South <strong>of</strong><br />
Chiloe) & from that point to Valparaiso will be finished in about 5 months. We shall<br />
examine the Cho<strong>no</strong>s archipelago, entirely unk<strong>no</strong>wn, & the curious sea behind Chiloe.<br />
For me it is glorious; Cape Tres Montes is the most Southern point where there is<br />
much geological interest, as there the modern beds end…” (Barlow 1945: 110; Keynes<br />
1979: 243; Burkhardt & Smith (1985: 418). From an anchorage close to Punta Tres<br />
Montes on the western tip <strong>of</strong> the Taitao Peninsula at latitude 47ºS, Darwin wrote in<br />
his Diary “…the land in all these islands is next thing to impassable; the coast is<br />
rugged & so very uneven that it is one never ceasing climb to attempt to pass that way;<br />
as for the woods, I have said e<strong>no</strong>ugh about them; I shall never forget or forgive them;<br />
my face, hands, shin-bones all bear witness what maltreatment I have received in<br />
simply trying to penetrate into their forbidden recesses…” (Keynes 1988: 274). Here<br />
he collected Stereocaulon ramulosum [Henslow No. 471 – recorded by Hooker (1847:<br />
529)]. This was the first lichen collection from this remote part <strong>of</strong> southern Chile, and<br />
it was to be a<strong>no</strong>ther 156 years before lichens were collected from this area when, in<br />
1990, Raleigh International investigated the Taitao Peninsula and Laguna San Rafael<br />
and a specific regional lichen collection was made (Galloway 1992b).<br />
From anchorages further <strong>no</strong>rth among the islands <strong>of</strong> the Cho<strong>no</strong>s Archipelago<br />
Darwin collected the following lichens: Leifidium tenerum [Henslow No. 485 –<br />
recorded as Sphaerophoron tenerum by Hooker (1847: 530)], Menegazzia magellanica<br />
[Henslow No. 477 – recorded as Parmelia diatrypa by Hooker (1847: 533)],<br />
Pseudocyphellaria divulsa (Fig. 1) [Henslow No. 476 – (this collection is the type <strong>of</strong><br />
Sticta divulsa (Taylor 1847; Galloway 1991a: 236; 1992a: 97-98; 2008: 443. Recorded<br />
as Sticta billardieri by Hooker (1847: 527], P. flavicans, P. nitida and Usnea chilensis<br />
[recorded as U. florida by Hooker (1847: 522)]. From what he called Midship Bay,<br />
Darwin <strong>no</strong>ted, “…Here Cryptogamic flora reached its perfection… All the Cryptogamio<br />
were gathered in 5 minutes and within a space <strong>of</strong> 210 yards square. A most wonderful<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>usion…” (Porter 1987: 179).<br />
7. Iquique: On 12 July 1835, the Beagle anchored at the then Peruvian port <strong>of</strong><br />
Iquique, Darwin <strong>no</strong>ting in his Diary “…<strong>The</strong> coast was here formed by a great steep<br />
wall <strong>of</strong> rock about 2000 feet high; the town containing about a thousand inhabitants,<br />
stands on a little plain <strong>of</strong> loose sand at the foot <strong>of</strong> this barrier. <strong>The</strong> whole is utterly<br />
desolate… At this season <strong>of</strong> the year, a heavy bank <strong>of</strong> clouds parallel to the ocean<br />
seldom rises above the wall <strong>of</strong> coast rocks. – <strong>The</strong> aspect <strong>of</strong> the place was most gloomy…”<br />
(Keynes 1988: 344). <strong>The</strong> following day Darwin wrote “… On the coast mountains at<br />
about 2000 ft elevation, the bare sand was strewed over with an unattached greenish<br />
Lichen, in form like those which grow on old stumps: this in a few spots was sufficiently<br />
abundant to tinge the sand when seen from a little distance, <strong>of</strong> a yellowish color. I also<br />
saw a<strong>no</strong>ther minute species <strong>of</strong> Lichen on the old bones. And where the first kind was
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lying, there were in the clefts <strong>of</strong> the rocks a few Cacti. <strong>The</strong>se are supported by the dense<br />
clouds which generally rest on the land at this height… This is the first true desart I<br />
have ever seen; the effect on me was <strong>no</strong>t impressive…” (Keynes 1988: 345-346).<br />
Darwin’s unk<strong>no</strong>wn soil lichen is most likely Vermalicina tigrina (Spujt 1995,<br />
1996), described by Gerhard Follmann as Ramalina tigrina (Follmann 1966), 131<br />
years after its initial discovery, although <strong>no</strong> specimen <strong>of</strong> it has been found attributable<br />
to Darwin. His observations on the relationships <strong>of</strong> cloud, cacti and lichens, are the<br />
first I k<strong>no</strong>w <strong>of</strong>, <strong>of</strong> the “camanchaca” (the South American vernacular name for the<br />
cold coastal fog that sweeps in from the Pacific to drape the coastal ranges and their<br />
“cactus forests”) and its influence on lichen distribution in these fascinating fog-oases<br />
that are characteristic <strong>of</strong> the <strong>no</strong>rth <strong>of</strong> Chile and found also in Peru, Baja California and<br />
Namibia. Although in recent years, the characteristic North Chilean coastal lichen<br />
mycobiota has been in alarming decline (Follmann 1995), Darwin’s “lichen oasis”<br />
was rediscovered by Gerhard Follmann in the early 1990s when a few SW-facing<br />
clefts <strong>of</strong> the outer ridges <strong>of</strong> the coastal cordillera between 800 and 900 m, revealed<br />
large mats <strong>of</strong> soil lichens developed between sparse skeletons <strong>of</strong> the columnar cactus<br />
Eulychnia iquiquensis. Here, Darwin’s greenish lichen, V. tigrina, associates with<br />
Heterodermia leucomela, Ramalina celastri, R. cochlearis, R. peruviana, R. pilulifera,<br />
Roccellina suffruticosa and Xanthomendoza mendozae (Follmann 1994).<br />
8. Peru: <strong>The</strong> Beagle anchored at Callao on 19 July 1835 and Darwin stayed in<br />
Lima for 6 weeks (Burkhardt & Smith 1985: 541), during which time he visited the<br />
island <strong>of</strong> San Lorenzo. In a letter to Joseph Hooker on 16 April 1845 he wrote “…<strong>The</strong><br />
enclosed little lichens, came from near the summit <strong>of</strong> most barren isl d <strong>of</strong> San Lorenzo<br />
<strong>of</strong>f Lima: what on earth made me think them worth collecting I k<strong>no</strong>w <strong>no</strong>t – please<br />
throw them away…” (Burkhardt & Smith 1987: 177). To this Hooker replied on 28<br />
April 1845 “…<strong>The</strong> St Lorenzo Lichen I can make <strong>no</strong>thing <strong>of</strong> but have sent it to D r<br />
Taylor, with <strong>no</strong> hopes however: as I could <strong>no</strong>t find fructification. You <strong>no</strong>tice somewhere<br />
a blown-about-Lichen on the Andes, at Quillota is it? – it is an Usnea perhaps the<br />
Antarctic U. melaxantha but the specimens are very imperfect …” (Burkhardt & Smith<br />
1987: 183). This refers to the lichen Ramalina tigrina, that Darwin had found on sand<br />
above Iquique (see above).<br />
9. Galapagos Islands: <strong>The</strong> Beagle stayed at the Galapagos Islands from 15<br />
September until 20 <strong>October</strong> 1835 (Burkhardt & Smith 1985: 541). In his Journal Darwin<br />
<strong>no</strong>ted “…<strong>The</strong> tortoises which live on those islands where there is <strong>no</strong> water… feed<br />
chiefly on the succulent cactus. …and likewise a pale green filamentous lichen (Usnea<br />
plicata), that hangs in tresses from the boughs <strong>of</strong> trees…” (Darwin 1845). Joseph<br />
Hooker lists three lichens from the Galapagos all collected by Darwin viz. Usnea<br />
plicata [= U. articulata], Borrera leucomelos [= Heterodermia leucomela] and Sticta<br />
aurata [= Pseudocyphellaria aurata] (Hooker 1851).<br />
Darwin’s place in South American liche<strong>no</strong>logy<br />
<strong>The</strong> great South American traveller and observer, Alexander Humboldt (1769-<br />
1859), makes a fascinating comparison <strong>of</strong> Darwin with George Forster as a gifted<br />
observer <strong>of</strong> nature as shown in the following extract from Cosmos, “…I have here<br />
attempted to indicate the direction in which the power possessed by the observer <strong>of</strong><br />
representing what he has seen, the animating influence <strong>of</strong> the descriptive element, and
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the multiplication and enlargement <strong>of</strong> views opened to us on the vast theatre <strong>of</strong> natural<br />
forces, may all serve as means <strong>of</strong> encouraging the scientific study <strong>of</strong> nature, and<br />
enlarging its domain. <strong>The</strong> writer who in our German literature, according to my opinion,<br />
has most vigorously and successfully opened this path, is my celebrated teacher and<br />
friend, George Forster. Through him began a new era <strong>of</strong> scientific voyages, the aim <strong>of</strong><br />
which was to arrive at a k<strong>no</strong>wledge <strong>of</strong> the comparative history and geography <strong>of</strong><br />
different countries. Gifted with delicate aesthetic feelings, and retaining a vivid<br />
impression <strong>of</strong> the picture with which Tahiti and the other then happy islands <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Pacific had filled his imagination, as in recent times that <strong>of</strong> Charles Darwin, George<br />
Forster was the first to depict in pleasing colours the changing stages <strong>of</strong> vegetation,<br />
the relations <strong>of</strong> climate and <strong>of</strong> articles <strong>of</strong> food in their influence on the civilisation <strong>of</strong><br />
mankind, according to differences <strong>of</strong> original descent and habitation. All that can give<br />
truth, individuality, and distinctiveness to the delineation <strong>of</strong> exotic nature is united in<br />
his works…” (Humboldt 1849: 436-437).<br />
Darwin has an established place in the annals <strong>of</strong> South American liche<strong>no</strong>logy both<br />
for his collections, and for the observations that he made upon some <strong>of</strong> these, from<br />
Brazil, Uruguay, Tierra del Fuego and the west coast <strong>of</strong> Chile from the Taitao Peninsula<br />
to the Atacama Desert. It is the Chilean mycobiota especially to which Darwin’s<br />
collections are foundational (Galloway 1993a). Indeed, Darwin’s lichen collections<br />
from the Cho<strong>no</strong>s Archipelago, Chiloe and from the Atacama are amongst the first from<br />
these regions and were <strong>no</strong>t repeated until the 1960s and 1970s with the work <strong>of</strong> the<br />
liche<strong>no</strong>logists Gerhard Follmann in the <strong>no</strong>rth, and Henry Imshaug in the south.<br />
He was, however, <strong>no</strong>t the first 19 th century collector <strong>of</strong> Chilean lichens. <strong>The</strong> Italian<br />
physician and traveller, Carlo Guiseppe Bertero collected lichens in 1827 from Chile<br />
and from Juan Fernández in 1830, while the enterprising Devonshire sail-maker,<br />
naturalist, explorer and merchant Hugh Cuming who had settled in Valparaíso in 1819,<br />
collected lichens on a trip to Chiloé in 1827, among them the type <strong>of</strong> Sticta nitida<br />
(Taylor 1847), a distinctive Valdivian lichen epiphyte <strong>no</strong>w k<strong>no</strong>wn as Pseudocyphellaria<br />
nitida (Galloway 1992a). Nevertheless, Darwin’s South American lichen discoveries<br />
are important in the history <strong>of</strong> South American liche<strong>no</strong>logy in that they form a bridge<br />
between the earliest collectors in the region; Handisyd in the 17 th century (Moore<br />
1983; Galloway 1985, 1991a, 1998b, 2008); and Commerson (Galloway 1985, 1992a,<br />
1998b, 2008), Banks and Solander (Galloway 2008), George Forster (Galloway &<br />
James 1977, Galloway 1985, 1991a, 1992a, 1998b, 2008) and Archibald Menzies<br />
(Galloway & Groves 1987; Galloway 1995b) in the 18 th century, and the period <strong>of</strong><br />
intense interest and collection that came 20 years after Darwin’s visit, with the work<br />
<strong>of</strong> Joseph Hooker, Claudio Gay, Willibald Lechler and others. Moreover, Darwin was<br />
generations ahead <strong>of</strong> his time in his observations on biodiversity <strong>of</strong> cryptogams, made<br />
in his journal, diary and <strong>no</strong>tebooks (Darwin 1845; Keynes 1979, 1988, 2000; Porter<br />
1980, 1982, 1985, 1987), a point that should be stressed.<br />
Darwin’s lichen collections were <strong>of</strong> vital importance to Joseph Hooker in his studies<br />
on the southern zone, and he used several Darwin specimens as illustrations for the<br />
second part <strong>of</strong> his Flora Antarctica (Hooker 1847). One such, is the glorious coloured<br />
engraving <strong>of</strong> Pseudocyphellaria freycinetii made by Walter Hood Fitch from Darwin’s<br />
collection from Tierra del Fuego (Fig. 3). As a small digression, the pattern plate used
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for this illustration I found in the reprint storeroom <strong>of</strong> Wheldon & Wesley in the early<br />
1980s in one <strong>of</strong> the outbuildings <strong>of</strong> Lytton Lodge. <strong>The</strong> late Howard Kirke Swann gave<br />
me the key to the barn where the reprints were housed and told me “to have a fossick”.<br />
Beside finding a number <strong>of</strong> very useful lichen reprints, I came across several brown<br />
paper parcels, one <strong>of</strong> which was untied and had a coloured engraving, which I<br />
recognised, projecting from it. On further examination, these proved to be the original<br />
“pattern plates” for J.D. Hooker’s <strong>The</strong> Botany <strong>of</strong> the Antarctic Voyage. When I told<br />
Howard about these, he told me that they were undoubtedly part <strong>of</strong> the bankrupt stock<br />
<strong>of</strong> Lovell Reeve that had come into their possession when their business was established.<br />
I suggested that the then Botany Department Librarian, Judith Diment, should look at<br />
the plates with a view to purchasing them for the British Museum (Natural History)<br />
Fig. 3. W.H. Fitch’s hand-coloured engraving (pattern plate) <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s 1833<br />
collection <strong>of</strong> Pseudocyphellaria freycinetii from Tierra del Fuego<br />
(original in BM, Botany Department Library)
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and so, one memorable autumn after<strong>no</strong>on, Judith and I went through the parcels and<br />
discovered the complete collection <strong>of</strong> pattern plates, which Howard <strong>of</strong>fered to the<br />
Museum at a very favourable price. As far as the lichen plates go, many <strong>of</strong> them have<br />
marginal an<strong>no</strong>tations by both Joseph Hooker and Churchill Babington the author <strong>of</strong><br />
the lichen sections <strong>of</strong> Flora Novae Zelandiae and Flora Tasmaniae (Galloway 1991b),<br />
as directions to the colourists for getting just the required shading or colour for a<br />
particular lichen. <strong>The</strong> pattern plates are <strong>no</strong>w boxed and held in the Botany Library <strong>of</strong><br />
the Natural History Museum.<br />
<strong>The</strong> mycologist Miles Joseph Berkeley (1803-1889) who had earlier studied<br />
Darwin’s fungi (Berkeley 1842), wrote <strong>of</strong> Darwin “…a writer whom I have <strong>no</strong><br />
hesitation, so far as my own judgement goes, in considering as by far the greatest<br />
observer <strong>of</strong> our age…” (Berkeley 1869). Darwin’s natural successor as an observer <strong>of</strong><br />
southern South American cryptogams and their habitats was Carl Skottsberg (1880-<br />
1963) who followed Darwin 70 years later (Moore 1983; Marticorena & Rodríguez<br />
1995; Tibell 1999).<br />
Interestingly, and by way <strong>of</strong> conclusion, one <strong>of</strong> Darwin’s schoolboy friends in<br />
1817 at Mr Case’s primary day school in Shrewsbury, William Allport Leighton (1805-<br />
1889), also a Botany student at Cambridge under Henslow, later became the leading<br />
British liche<strong>no</strong>logist <strong>of</strong> his day, publishing a Flora <strong>of</strong> Shropshire in 1841, which he<br />
dedicated to Henslow, and later his magisterial Lichen Flora <strong>of</strong> Great Britain (Leighton<br />
1871) which ran to three editions. Leighton appears early in Darwin’s autobiography<br />
in the following remembrance “…One little event during this year [1817] has fixed<br />
itself very firmly in my mind, and I hope that it has done so from my conscience<br />
having been afterwards sorely troubled by it; it is curious as showing that apparently<br />
I was interested at this early age in the variability <strong>of</strong> plants! I told a<strong>no</strong>ther little boy (I<br />
believe it was Leighton, who afterwards became a well-k<strong>no</strong>wn Liche<strong>no</strong>logist and<br />
botanist) that I could produce variously coloured Polyanthuses and Primroses by<br />
watering them with certain coloured fluids, which was <strong>of</strong> course a monstrous fable,<br />
and had never been tried by me. I may here also confess that as a little boy I was much<br />
given to inventing deliberate falsehoods, and this was always done for the sake <strong>of</strong><br />
causing excitement…” (Barlow 1958: 23).<br />
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Obituaries<br />
Leaford Patrick FLS (1934-2009)<br />
Member <strong>of</strong> Council <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong> 1999-2003<br />
It is with great sadness that we report the death <strong>of</strong> biologist and museum curator<br />
Leaford Patrick on Friday 6 th February 2009. Pre-deceased in December 2008 by his<br />
devoted wife Jeanne, Leaford is survived by his beloved daughters Anne and Kay,<br />
grandchildren Joe, Marcus, Jed and Cleo, niece Sonia and older sister Norma.<br />
Leaford was born on 4 th <strong>October</strong> 1934 in Kingston, Jamaica, to George and Adeline<br />
Patrick. Precociously concerned to explore the world <strong>of</strong> science and culture, Leaford<br />
aged seven <strong>of</strong>ten visited the Institute <strong>of</strong> Jamaica in Kingston to use the library and<br />
admire the museum collections. His pleasant, bright and enquiring nature captured<br />
the attention <strong>of</strong> Deputy Director Mr. Ron Bengey and Assistant Director Mr. Verity,<br />
both <strong>of</strong> whom became academic mentors. Leaford boldly questioned his first biology<br />
teacher, Father Arthur Hennessy <strong>of</strong> St George’s College, over perceived biological<br />
issues relating to the virgin birth <strong>of</strong> Jesus, thus beginning what was to become a lifelong<br />
personal debate over ‘science versus faith’.<br />
Family funds to advance Leaford’s education remained scarce and, while a teenager,<br />
he found work as a fisherman, developing a wide interest in marine life. Despite<br />
demands <strong>of</strong> work, he maintained his close association with the Institute; gladly stepping<br />
in to voluntarily assist Conservator and Picture Restorer Ann Clapp in combating<br />
devastation to the collections resulting from hurricane ‘Charlie’ in 1951. This inspired<br />
ambitions for a career in museums involving artefact and specimen preservation. An<br />
early leaning towards botany was evident, with visits to botanical gardens including<br />
Castelton, Chinchona Plantation and Hope Garden. A Botany Department was<br />
established at the Institute under George Proctor and Leaford eagerly assisted in its<br />
development and in expeditionary fieldwork, where he had a passion for the study <strong>of</strong><br />
indige<strong>no</strong>us grasses. This led to the production <strong>of</strong> a work on <strong>The</strong> Grasses <strong>of</strong> Jamaica<br />
and Leaford became a Member <strong>of</strong> the Geological <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> Jamaica in 1953.<br />
In 1956 Leaford travelled to Britain to pursue his thirst for k<strong>no</strong>wledge, where he<br />
gained a post in the University <strong>of</strong> Oxford’s Zoology Department as a trainee Technical<br />
Assistant. Leaford worked for the Linacre Pr<strong>of</strong>essor, Sir Alister Hardy FRS (1896-<br />
1985) and other eminent Oxford zoologists including entomologist Dr Edmund Brisco<br />
Ford FRS (1901-1988) and Dr Arthur J. Cain FRS (1921-1999). <strong>The</strong> relationship with<br />
Hardy prospered, re-kindling Leaford’s interest in the sea, fish and fisheries which<br />
was Hardy’s specialism. Leaford remained in Oxford for two years, returning in 1958<br />
to work in the Institute <strong>of</strong> Jamaica under Director Bernard Lewis and becoming<br />
progressively more interested in zoology. Between 1961 and 1962 he visited the<br />
University <strong>of</strong> Georgia where he studied ichthyology. In 1962 he returned to Oxford,<br />
where he worked in the University’s Museum <strong>of</strong> Zoology, curated by Arthur Cain.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re he prepared exhibits on Darwinian evolution and gained the Technical Certificate<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Museums Association.<br />
Leaford was recruited by the Horniman Museum & Gardens in 1963, eventually<br />
becoming Deputy Keeper <strong>of</strong> Natural History. He remained here until his retirement in
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 53<br />
1999. Leaford spent many years<br />
curating the collections and preparing,<br />
installing new natural history exhibits,<br />
utilising his great breadth <strong>of</strong> skills<br />
acquired in geology, palaeontology,<br />
botany, zoology, physical anthropology<br />
and educational interpretation.<br />
I first met Leaford when I joined the<br />
Horniman Museum in 1985. We<br />
became close colleagues and personal<br />
friends, collaborating on curious and<br />
interesting projects including the<br />
refurbishment and redisplay <strong>of</strong> the<br />
famous Horniman Walrus. This was<br />
created in Victorian times without full<br />
k<strong>no</strong>wledge <strong>of</strong> the appearance <strong>of</strong> the<br />
live animal, resulting in a comically<br />
over-stuffed but much-loved<br />
taxidermy mount! We worked<br />
together on many temporary public<br />
exhibitions such as Leeches to Lasers<br />
Leaford Patrick c. 2001.<br />
– a bio-medical display run in<br />
conjunction with King’s College Medical School. Much to the excitement and<br />
amusement <strong>of</strong> local schoolchildren, this featured an animated gin-swilling Victorian<br />
nurse and living leeches (Hirudo medicinalis).<br />
Leaford and I steadily catalogued and helped conserve the large specimen<br />
collections in ‘Dread<strong>no</strong>ught’, a vast Greenwich storehouse. It pleased us that we<br />
managed to rescue significant collections that had been ‘at risk’ and incorporate these<br />
in the Horniman Collections. We also worked in partnership with the Greater <strong>London</strong><br />
Ecology Unit, <strong>London</strong> Wildlife Trust and the Manpower Services Commission to<br />
establish a large Horniman-based team <strong>of</strong> university graduates to survey wild animals,<br />
Leaford Patrick c 1961 with the staff <strong>of</strong> the Zoology Department,<br />
University <strong>of</strong> Oxford.
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plants and natural habitats south <strong>of</strong> the Thames. From this survey, we identified areas<br />
<strong>of</strong> ‘social cum environmental deprivation’ and acted to protect the scientifically<br />
important Sydenham Hill Wood from building development. In 1990 we collaborated<br />
on our last project: Living Waters – an Aquarium for the Future, the first in the world<br />
to be dedicated entirely to issues in aquatic conservation. This was a complete reworking<br />
<strong>of</strong> the original Horniman Museum Aquarium & Vivarium established under<br />
the aegis <strong>of</strong> Victorian naturalist and marine biologist Philip Henry Gosse FRS (1810-<br />
1888), who actually invented the word ‘aquarium’ and founded the first ever public<br />
aquarium at Regents Park Zoo, 1854.<br />
Leaford met his future wife Jeanne Pruce in 1962, while he was volunteering at<br />
the Camberwell Association with Robin Guthrie who convened a Board on Race<br />
Relations. Jeanne was Secretary to the Association and looked after the welfare <strong>of</strong><br />
overseas students and visitors. Leaford was a handsome, well-dressed, polite young<br />
man and on meeting Jeanne there was instant mutual attraction. Jeanne’s father was<br />
Labour Party Councillor Ernest Pruce, a distinguished political figure in south <strong>London</strong>.<br />
Leaford told me that he proposed marriage to Jeanne on a visit to her family house.<br />
She was keen to accept but he would have to first seek the approval <strong>of</strong> her father, who<br />
was at that moment in the garden chopping wood with a large axe. Inter-racial marriages<br />
were at that time uncommon and Leaford was naturally apprehensive in approaching<br />
Ernest, <strong>no</strong>t quite k<strong>no</strong>wing what to expect. Plucking up courage he said “Sir, I would<br />
like to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage … and, <strong>of</strong> course, help you chop<br />
wood.” Ernest looked at him closely, handed him the axe and then, with a beaming<br />
smile, enquired if they had set a date. <strong>The</strong> couple married in April 1965 and, before<br />
the wedding, Leaford formally converted to Roman Catholicism but continued his<br />
lifetime struggle in balancing religious and scientific convictions, particularly in relation<br />
to Darwinian evolution.<br />
Always hugely public spirited and generous with his time, Leaford gave voluntary<br />
service to many boards from 1970 onwards, to which roles he brought a calm dignity<br />
and natural gravitas, which earned respect. <strong>The</strong>se <strong>no</strong>tably included <strong>The</strong> Inner <strong>London</strong><br />
Executive Council, <strong>The</strong> South East Thames Regional Health Authority, <strong>The</strong> Lambeth<br />
Southwark and Lewisham Area Health Authority and Family Planning Clinic, <strong>The</strong><br />
Camberwell Health Authority Community Board and Trust and the Family Health<br />
Service Authority. He was elected as an Associate Member <strong>of</strong> King’s College Hospital<br />
Healthcare (1991-1992) and as a Mental Health Act Manager for West Lambeth<br />
Healthcare (1995-1999). He served alongside Dr Keith Maybury VPLS and Pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />
Brian Gardiner PPLS as a Member <strong>of</strong> Council <strong>of</strong> the North <strong>of</strong> England Zoological<br />
<strong>Society</strong> (2000-2001). Following his longstanding contributions to natural history, he<br />
was elected as a Fellow <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong> on 6 th February 1997 and as<br />
a Council Member 1999-2003.<br />
Leaford was a keen artist and his paintings demonstrate a certain genius, charm<br />
and spirituality. Particular favourites <strong>of</strong> mine are his endearing rendition <strong>of</strong> a ‘White<br />
Horse’ and, above all, his ‘Brotherly Love’, which shows the two <strong>of</strong> us under the<br />
famous portrait <strong>of</strong> Charles Darwin in the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong>’s Lecture Room.<br />
GORDON MCGREGOR REID PPLS
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 55<br />
Margaret Elizabeth Varley FLS (1918-2009)<br />
An appreciation <strong>of</strong> the life <strong>of</strong> Peggy Varley (née Brown)<br />
Decades ago a visiting American zoologist wanted to photograph ‘Dr ME Brown’<br />
reputed to have tutored 70% <strong>of</strong> the UK Pr<strong>of</strong>essors <strong>of</strong> Zoology earlier in their careers,<br />
either at Cambridge, <strong>London</strong> or Oxford Universities. Expecting to find an elderly<br />
man, he was very surprised to be introduced to the ever-smiling Peggy Brown. Peggy<br />
Brown, as she was then k<strong>no</strong>wn, was born in India in 1918, where safaris on elephants<br />
with her father, a District Officer in the Indian Civil Service, sparked her interest in<br />
wildlife. From six years old she was sent to live in England where, from Malvern<br />
Girls College, in 1937 with a scholarship to Girton College Cambridge, she went to<br />
the Zoology Department to study Natural Sciences under Dr Sidnie M. Manton FRS,<br />
who became a lifelong friend and fellow enthusiast for breeding cats. Her pr<strong>of</strong>essor,<br />
James Grey, had an experimental approach to solving biological problems and Peggy’s<br />
PhD on the growth <strong>of</strong> brown trout – an early study on how fish behaviour affects<br />
growth – led her to a lifelong interest in fish physiology and behaviour and established<br />
her reputation in these fields.<br />
Several junior teaching jobs in Cambridge enabled her to complete her PhD. During<br />
that period, in 1941, when the Freshwater Biological Association was exploring ways<br />
in which the yield <strong>of</strong> edible fish from freshwater sources could be used to augment<br />
wartime food supplies, Barton Worthington engaged Peggy to carry out tank<br />
experiments on eels at the FBA laboratory in Wray Castle on Lake Windermere. In<br />
1942 I was appointed to<br />
continue this work, and thus<br />
began a lifetime friendship and<br />
travels to study fishes with<br />
Peggy. In 1950-51 she spent her<br />
sabbatical year working at the<br />
East African Fisheries Research<br />
Organization, living with me in<br />
Jinja, Uganda. Here she<br />
Peggy Varley with a tray <strong>of</strong><br />
haplochromines aboard the<br />
RV Ethelwyn Trewavas on<br />
Lake Malawi in 1991.
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researched growth rates <strong>of</strong> Lake Victoria’s haplochromine cichlid fishes, and also<br />
advised on the trout stocked in the highland steams <strong>of</strong> Kenya and Uganda. En route to<br />
the Kenya coast to look at tilapia ponds and marine fishes we climbed Mount<br />
Kilimanjaro. Years later we continued our cichlid studies on Lake Malawi (1991) and<br />
in Brazil (1995) when attending the International Lim<strong>no</strong>logical Congress.<br />
In 1951 Peggy moved to Kings College <strong>London</strong> as Lecturer in Vertebrate Zoology<br />
until her marriage in 1955 to entomologist Pr<strong>of</strong>essor George Varley prompted a move<br />
to Oxford. Here she was welcomed as Demonstrator in the Zoology and Comparative<br />
Anatomy Department at the University from 1959 to 1964 and in 1962 joined the<br />
teaching staff at St Hilda’s College, becoming a supernumerary Fellow in 1963. In<br />
Oxford the Varleys lived in an ionic house designed by former pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> zoology<br />
Walter Garstang, later the home <strong>of</strong> Alastair Hardy. This remained Peggy’s base, with<br />
many visitors, until she died at home in July 2009 aged 90.<br />
Peggy’s research into tilapia as a food fish continued during the 1960s. Her busy<br />
life, in addition to teaching zoology and producing a daughter and son, included editing<br />
the two volume treatise <strong>The</strong> Physiology <strong>of</strong> Fishes. She also wrote books on <strong>The</strong> Trout<br />
with Winifred Frost <strong>of</strong> the Freshwater Biological Association (Collins New Naturalist,<br />
1967) and a<strong>no</strong>ther on British Freshwater Fishes and, in collaboration with Manton, a<br />
widely used dissection manual. As an authority on fish growth and culture she was an<br />
active consultant to the Salmon and Trout Association, which brought a stream <strong>of</strong><br />
fishes for autopsy to their home. She also assisted George Varley with his entomological<br />
work until he died in 1983.<br />
In 1969 Peggy was appointed Senior Lecturer, then Reader in Biology, at the<br />
newly formed Open University, Milton Keynes. This OU team designed the pioneer<br />
courses for the ‘university <strong>of</strong> the air’ and their television programmes on ecology and<br />
other aspects <strong>of</strong> biology, with excellent accompanying texts, showed Peggy’s<br />
communicating skills to a whole new audience <strong>of</strong> students. A wider public also<br />
appreciated the TV programmes – for example a memorable one on Sidnie Manton’s<br />
genetic work to produce the new ‘colour point’ breed <strong>of</strong> cats, enlivened by kittens<br />
scampering all over the studio. <strong>The</strong> job involved presenting TV programmes at<br />
Alexandra Palace in North <strong>London</strong> and frequent travel to Milton Keynes, where she<br />
trained many new recruits in the art <strong>of</strong> writing OU courses. An example <strong>of</strong> her work<br />
with the OU’s dispersed and very disparate students was the study <strong>of</strong> melanism in<br />
peppered moths developed for the first science foundation course in 1971. Discoveries<br />
by students were <strong>of</strong> sufficient importance to merit publication in the US journal Science<br />
(1986).<br />
Peggy was a long time member <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong>, a very active Chairman <strong>of</strong><br />
the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), a member <strong>of</strong> the Natural<br />
Environment Research Council, <strong>The</strong> Freshwater Biological Association and many<br />
other bodies. Her greatest legacy was from her excellent teaching skills and with her<br />
happy disposition she greatly enriched the lives <strong>of</strong> a wide circle <strong>of</strong> friends and<br />
colleagues.<br />
RO LOWE-M C CONNELL FLS
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 57<br />
Christopher John Humphries<br />
(1947-2009)<br />
With Chris Humphries’ death on 31 st July 2009, systematics in general, and the<br />
<strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> in particular, has lost one <strong>of</strong> its most influential personalities. As<br />
demonstrated at his funeral, his passing has been mourned, and he is greatly missed.<br />
Christopher John Humphries was<br />
born in Derby on 29 th April 1947. He<br />
attended grammar school in Etwall,<br />
but left at 16 to work at Bass’s<br />
brewery. Encouraged by their chief<br />
scientist, he studied at Derby<br />
Technical College and then<br />
University <strong>of</strong> Kingston-upon-Hull,<br />
graduating in 1969 with BSc Ho<strong>no</strong>urs<br />
in Botany. He studied for his Ph.D,<br />
awarded in 1973 for “A taxo<strong>no</strong>mic<br />
study <strong>of</strong> the genus Argyranthemum”,<br />
with Ver<strong>no</strong>n Heywood at Reading. In<br />
1969 Chris met Marilyn Shephard,<br />
and they married in 1971. <strong>The</strong>y had<br />
two children, Ben, <strong>no</strong>w an architect,<br />
and Marie, a photographer.<br />
In 1972 Chris joined the British<br />
Museum (Natural History) as an<br />
assistant curator in the Botany<br />
Department. He remained with the NHM <strong>London</strong> throughout his career, receiving<br />
several promotions, and retiring in 2007 after eleven years as a Merit Researcher.<br />
Before that he had been Head Curator <strong>of</strong> the European Herbarium, Head <strong>of</strong> the General<br />
Herbarium, and Division Head for Flowering Plants Research.<br />
Chris’s early research concentrated on Asteraceae and their distribution in<br />
Macaronesia, and a fascination with the North Atlantic islands remained to the last.<br />
However, his interests in empirical botany widened considerably, including popular<br />
works and field guides but, most significantly, he became enthralled by the flora <strong>of</strong><br />
the southern hemisphere – <strong>no</strong>tably Noth<strong>of</strong>agus and the eucalypts. This key element in<br />
his research œuvre was triggered by his involvement in the great “Banks’ Florilegium”<br />
project, completed in 1989 and comprising 100 sets <strong>of</strong> 738 plates, each individually<br />
coloured, published by Alecto Historical Editions. <strong>The</strong> idea emerged from an informal<br />
conversation between Chris and his friend Nigel Frith (<strong>of</strong> Alecto) over a decade earlier<br />
- and Chris was involved in developing the texts, as well as checking the colour fidelity<br />
<strong>of</strong> all the plates.<br />
Chris held leading positions with the Systematics Association, the Willi Hennig<br />
<strong>Society</strong>, and the Flora & Fauna Preservation <strong>Society</strong>. For the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong>, Chris<br />
was Member <strong>of</strong> Council (1981-1984), Botanical Secretary (1990-1999), and Vice
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THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
President (1996-1997). He helped organise meetings sponsored by the <strong>Society</strong> and<br />
the Systematics Association, including several presented at Burlington House, the<br />
NHM, and at Kew. An associate editor for BJLS (1981-1983), he was founder and<br />
editor <strong>of</strong> Cladistics, and served on the editorial boards <strong>of</strong> Australian Systematic Botany,<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Biogeography, Oryx and Journal <strong>of</strong> Comparative Biology. His teaching at<br />
Reading’s Department <strong>of</strong> Plant Sciences was recognised by appointment as Visiting<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor. Abroad he taught short courses at Melbourne, Copenhagen and Cape Town.<br />
However, his most important contribution to teaching came through his key role in the<br />
Systematics Association sponsored course Cladistics: <strong>The</strong>ory and Practice, which<br />
ran for several years in the 1990s, and was then absorbed into the Imperial College/<br />
NHM course Advanced Methods in Taxo<strong>no</strong>my and Biodiversity, which continues to<br />
this day.<br />
From a scientific perspective his most important contributions were to developing<br />
the theory <strong>of</strong> cladistics, and applying it, for example, to conservation (which took him<br />
and eight other scientists to the Wissnschaftskolleg in Berlin, 1994-95), developmental<br />
biology (“Ontogeny and Systematics”, 1988), and most importantly <strong>of</strong> all, to<br />
biogeography (the second edition <strong>of</strong> “Cladistic Biogeography”, with Lynne Parenti, is<br />
a standard work). His numerous ho<strong>no</strong>urs included the Bicentenary Medal <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong><br />
<strong>Society</strong> (1980; for promising biologists under 40), Ho<strong>no</strong>rary Fellowship <strong>of</strong> the Willi<br />
Hennig <strong>Society</strong> (1998), Ho<strong>no</strong>rary Research Fellow <strong>of</strong> the American Association for<br />
the Advancement <strong>of</strong> Science; Senior Research Fellow University <strong>of</strong> Melbourne, and<br />
the <strong>Linnean</strong> Medal for Botany, awarded by the <strong>Society</strong> in 2001. He will be recognised<br />
by a festschrift, “Beyond Cladistics”, and a more extensive appreciation in Cladistics,<br />
to appear in 2010.<br />
Chris Humphries was remarkable <strong>no</strong>t just for the quality and quantity <strong>of</strong> his<br />
published research, but for his connection with the wider systematics community<br />
through his involvement with societies, students and personal contacts - amateurs,<br />
historians, artists, conservationists and, above all, other researchers interested in the<br />
theory and practice <strong>of</strong> systematics. But to those who knew him well, Chris was much<br />
more than just an outstanding academic. His interests in food, art, modern literature,<br />
and above all music, made him huge fun to be with. As the Irish might say, he was<br />
good crack. As a result, he is <strong>no</strong>t only missed for his intellectual ability, but also his<br />
great warmth as a human being.<br />
R.I. VANE-WRIGHT FLS
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 59<br />
221st Anniversary Meeting<br />
<strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong><br />
held at<br />
Burlington House, Piccadilly, <strong>London</strong> W1J 0BF<br />
at 4.00 pm on Thursday 21 st May 2009<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> President took the Chair and welcomed 56 Fellows and their guests to the<br />
meeting.<br />
Apologies were received from:<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor William Chaloner Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Michael Claridge<br />
Mr Alastair Driver<br />
Dr Jennifer Edmonds<br />
Dr I Keith Ferguson<br />
Mr Jeremy Franks<br />
Mrs Katerina Heldring-Morris Dr Pamela Le Couteur<br />
Dr Ro Lowe-McConnell<br />
Dr Sylvia Phillips<br />
Dr Brian Rosen<br />
Ms Elaine Shaughnessy<br />
Dr Frederick Skinner<br />
Mr Wim S<strong>no</strong>eijer<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Jean-Jacques Symoens Ms Diane Tough<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Dick Vane-Wright Mr Peter Wilberforce<br />
2. Admission <strong>of</strong> Fellows. <strong>The</strong> following signed the Obligation in the Roll and Charter<br />
Book and were admitted Fellows:<br />
Jennifer Arthur<br />
Patricia Eckel<br />
Michael Engel<br />
Felix Forest<br />
Allan Hart<br />
Colin Hindmarch<br />
Jan Kresten Nielsen<br />
John Thompson<br />
Paolo Viscardi<br />
3. <strong>The</strong> Minutes <strong>of</strong> the Meetings held on 16 th April 2009 and 30 th April 2009 were<br />
accepted and signed.<br />
4. <strong>The</strong> Executive Secretary read for the third time the Certificate <strong>of</strong><br />
Recommendation for the election <strong>of</strong> a Fellow ho<strong>no</strong>ris causa, Ms Gina Douglas.<br />
<strong>The</strong> citation is reproduced below:<br />
Gina Douglas’s outstanding k<strong>no</strong>wledge <strong>of</strong> all the collections held by the <strong>Society</strong><br />
has ensured that many research workers, both Fellows and visitors have been helped<br />
to produce greatly improved research papers or books by her timely support as the<br />
many ack<strong>no</strong>wledgements in these works attest!<br />
Her constant and strong support <strong>of</strong> all the <strong>Society</strong>’s activities has greatly helped to<br />
make the <strong>Society</strong> the dynamic and forward-looking structure it is today. Based on the<br />
strength <strong>of</strong> its collections and the k<strong>no</strong>wledge which has been made public through the<br />
CARLS programme and the <strong>Society</strong>’s website, Gina’s voice can be discerned,<br />
promoting and explaining what treasures there are, what yet there is to do and how<br />
they can be used to help with the modern challenges we face.<br />
For outstanding service to the <strong>Society</strong> and the study <strong>of</strong> Natural History for over 26
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THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
years as Librarian and Acting Executive Secretary, we the undersigned propose Ms<br />
Gina Douglas as a Fellow ho<strong>no</strong>ris causa.<br />
Gren Lucas, David Cutler, Vaughan Southgate<br />
5. Appointment <strong>of</strong> Scrutineers. <strong>The</strong> following were appointed as scrutineers;<br />
Dr Alan Brafield, Dr Mary Morris and Pr<strong>of</strong>essor David Pye.<br />
6. Ballots. As a result <strong>of</strong> the ballots:<br />
a. <strong>The</strong> following were elected to Council: Dr N Keith Maybury (Z), Mr Terence Preston<br />
(Z), Dr Sylvia Phillips (B), Dr Mark Watson (B) Dr David Williams (B). Pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />
Patricia Willmer (Z).<br />
Details <strong>of</strong> these new Council members can be found in <strong>The</strong> <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>London</strong> Anniversary Meeting 2009 Council Agenda and Council Nominations,<br />
circulated with <strong>The</strong> <strong>Linnean</strong> in January 2009. , <strong>The</strong>se <strong>no</strong>minations, all made by the<br />
Council, were for Fellows to replace Pr<strong>of</strong>essor David Cutler (B), Dr Joe Cain (Z), Dr<br />
Shahina Ghazanfar (B), Mr Alastair Land (Z), Dr George McGavin (Z), Pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />
Mark Seaward (B) <strong>The</strong> President thanked outgoing Council members for their services<br />
to the <strong>Society</strong>.<br />
b. <strong>The</strong> following was elected a Fellow ho<strong>no</strong>ris causa: Ms Gina Douglas.<br />
c. <strong>The</strong> Officers elected were: President Dr Vaughan Southgate, Treasurer, Pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />
Gren Lucas OBE; Editorial Secretary, Dr John Edmondson; Botanical Secretary,<br />
Dr Sandy Knapp; Collections Secretary, Mrs Susan Gove and Zoological<br />
Secretary, Dr Malcolm Scoble.<br />
d. <strong>The</strong> Fellows were elected as on the accompanying list.<br />
7. Citations and Presentations <strong>of</strong> Medals and Awards:<br />
a. <strong>The</strong> President presented the 2009 <strong>Linnean</strong> Medal for Botany to Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Peter<br />
Ashton FLS, formerly Charles Bullard Research Pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> Forestry and Director<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Ar<strong>no</strong>ld Arboretum at Harvard University, and the Editorial Secretary, Dr<br />
John Edmondson read the citation:<br />
“Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Peter Ashton is internationally re<strong>no</strong>wned for his research on the flora <strong>of</strong><br />
tropical Asian forests. His six books and numerous papers on this subject, including a<br />
major mo<strong>no</strong>graphic work <strong>of</strong> the family Dipterocarpaceae, based on extensive field studies<br />
and containing many major timber trees, have helped <strong>no</strong>t only in increasing the<br />
understanding <strong>of</strong> the ecology and population biology <strong>of</strong> lowland tropical rainforests but<br />
in addressing applied conservation issues, particularly relating to these lowland forests<br />
in Malaysia and Borneo.<br />
Following his undergraduate study at the University <strong>of</strong> Cambridge, he was appointed<br />
Forest Botanist to the Brunei Government; he retained this position whilst undertaking<br />
postgraduate study. He completed his doctorate in 1962, the same year in which he was<br />
appointed as Forest Botanist to the Sarawak Government. Following four years in this<br />
post, in 1966 he took up an appointment as a Lecturer at the University <strong>of</strong> Aberdeen and<br />
was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1972. In 1978, he moved to the United States <strong>of</strong><br />
America to take up the prestigious appointment <strong>of</strong> Director <strong>of</strong> the Ar<strong>no</strong>ld Arboretum<br />
and Ar<strong>no</strong>ld Pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> Botany at Harvard University, becoming Charles Bullard<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> Forestry in 1991. He is currently Charles Bullard Pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> Forestry<br />
Emeritus, a Faculty Fellow in the Centre for International Development in the Kennedy
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 61<br />
School <strong>of</strong> Government at Harvard University and a Research Associate at the Royal<br />
Botanic Gardens, Kew.<br />
Alongside these academic roles, Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Ashton’s expertise has led to his appointment<br />
as a consultant to a wide range <strong>of</strong> national and international committees. He has been<br />
President <strong>of</strong> the International Association <strong>of</strong> Botanical Gardens, a gover<strong>no</strong>r <strong>of</strong> the U.S.<br />
Nature Conservancy, and recently completed a five-year term as a consultant in<br />
biodiversity to a Forest Research Institute Malaysia/ITTO/UNDP (World Bank-GEF)<br />
research project on Biodiversity conservation in productive rain forests. He is currently<br />
a consultant to the Highstead Foundation, to the TROPENBOS Foundation for Tropical<br />
Forestry in the Netherlands, a regional advisor (Asia) to the Centre for Tropical Forest<br />
Sciences <strong>of</strong> the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and a member <strong>of</strong> the Trees<br />
Advisory Group <strong>of</strong> the Species Survival Commission <strong>of</strong> IUCN. His current research<br />
projects include the preparation <strong>of</strong> a field guide to trees in the Brunei region <strong>of</strong> Borneo,<br />
contributing to the world checklist <strong>of</strong> Myrtaceae and he is providing editorial assistance<br />
for the Tree Flora <strong>of</strong> Sabah and Sarawak.<br />
For his seminal contributions to ecology, particularly relating to tropical lowland forestry<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Ashton has received the Award for Environmental Achievement <strong>of</strong> the U.S.<br />
Environmental Protection Agency and the Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental<br />
Conservation <strong>of</strong> UNESCO. <strong>The</strong>re is <strong>no</strong> doubt that he is a most deserving recipient <strong>of</strong> the<br />
prestigious award to be presented to him today - the <strong>Linnean</strong> Medal for Botany in 2009”.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Ashton responded by thanking the <strong>Society</strong> for the award <strong>of</strong> the medal.<br />
He highlighted his work with scientists in developing countries with a small scientific<br />
base and expressed the hope that their ideas and situations would be given adequate<br />
consideration, when international biological objectives were being developed.<br />
b. <strong>The</strong> President presented the 2009 <strong>Linnean</strong> Medal for Zoology to Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Michael<br />
Akam, Director <strong>of</strong> the University Museum <strong>of</strong> Zoology at the University <strong>of</strong><br />
Cambridge and the Zoological Secretary, Dr Vaughan Southgate read the citation:<br />
“Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Michael Akam is currently Director <strong>of</strong> the University Museum <strong>of</strong> Zoology at<br />
the University <strong>of</strong> Cambridge. Described by colleagues as “a reference figure in the evodevo<br />
field” and an “exceptional developmental biologist”, Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Akam was one <strong>of</strong><br />
the pioneers <strong>of</strong> evolutionary developmental biology and continues to be an exemplary<br />
leader in this field.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Akam completed a BA in Natural Sciences at King’s College, Cambridge in<br />
1974 and a DPhil in Genetics at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1978. He was a College<br />
Lecturer in Zoology at Magdalen College, Oxford during 1978 before moving to an 8-<br />
year appointment as a Research Fellow at King’s College, Cambridge; during this period<br />
he also held a Fellowship in the Department <strong>of</strong> Biochemistry at Stanford University<br />
from 1979-1981. He was a Founder member <strong>of</strong> the Wellcome/CRC Institute <strong>of</strong> Cancer<br />
and Developmental Biology at Cambridge, <strong>no</strong>w the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research<br />
UK Gurden Institute, and was elected a Fellow <strong>of</strong> the Royal <strong>Society</strong> in 2000.<br />
Much <strong>of</strong> his research has concerned the role <strong>of</strong> the ‘Hox’ family <strong>of</strong> developmental<br />
regulatory genes which control the basic layout <strong>of</strong> the body in most animals including<br />
man; his early research in the 1980s is considered to be groundbreaking and formed the<br />
foundation <strong>of</strong> work which still continues over 20 years later. In the early 1990’s Pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />
Akam recognized the potential application <strong>of</strong> detailed comparative developmental biology<br />
to understanding natural diversity, and so his “evo-devo” work, particularly relating to
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insects began. He has developed his work on Hox genes, and in particular how their<br />
regulation and expression leads to the range <strong>of</strong> different segment morphologies in<br />
Drosophila to address how changes in the role <strong>of</strong> these genes may be related to the<br />
pattern <strong>of</strong> segment diversity in other insects, in crustaceans and in myriapods. Pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />
Akam and his group have described <strong>no</strong>t only developmental differences between species,<br />
but abstract general rules about evolution and development and his laboratory continues<br />
to generate critical data to push evo-devo forward and tackle difficult questions. <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
work involves the use <strong>of</strong> a range <strong>of</strong> genetic and embryological techniques, including<br />
transgenesis, the analysis <strong>of</strong> cell lineage and descriptive molecular embryology. DNA<br />
sequences and ge<strong>no</strong>mic organisation play an increasingly important role, providing the<br />
phylogenetic framework against which to test hypotheses <strong>of</strong> evolutionary mechanisms.<br />
In recognition <strong>of</strong> his exceptional contribution to the field <strong>of</strong> zoology and to evolutionary<br />
biology, we are delighted to present the 2009 <strong>Linnean</strong> Medal for Zoology to Pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />
Michael Akam”.<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Akam expressed his thanks to the <strong>Society</strong> for the medal which he<br />
considered a tribute to the renaissance <strong>of</strong> evolutionary-developmental biology. He<br />
commented that it was his biology teacher who had inspired him to pursue a career in<br />
biology and paid tribute to biology teachers who inspire the next generation <strong>of</strong><br />
biologists.<br />
c. <strong>The</strong> President presented the 2009 H H Bloomer Award to Mr Markku Hakkinen.<br />
<strong>The</strong> citation, was composed and read by the Editorial Secretary, Dr John<br />
Edmondson:<br />
“Mr Markku Anton Häkkinen is a remarkable self-taught botanist and natural historian.<br />
Mr Häkkinen’s interest in natural history and botany was stimulated by the travel<br />
opportunities <strong>of</strong>fered to him in his “first” career as a sea captain – he gained his master’s<br />
certificate in 1976. His main research interest is in the study <strong>of</strong> wild bananas, the genus<br />
Musa. His work on this genus is based on field observations from China and South East<br />
Asia, and on the herbarium material, and literature from across the world. This has<br />
resulted in 55 publications, with more currently in press. His excellent photographic<br />
work aids the identification and description <strong>of</strong> many new species within this confusing<br />
taxo<strong>no</strong>mic group.<br />
Although he has <strong>no</strong> formal taxo<strong>no</strong>mic training, Mr Häkkinen is <strong>no</strong>w considered to be<br />
one <strong>of</strong> the world’s leading authorities on the taxo<strong>no</strong>my <strong>of</strong> Musa. He is currently a visiting<br />
researcher at the Natural History Museum, University <strong>of</strong> Helsinki, a visiting scholar at<br />
the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy <strong>of</strong> Sciences and,<br />
through the Biodiversity Taxo<strong>no</strong>mic Advisory Group, a Musa specialist adviser for many<br />
institutions all over the world. Mr Häkkinen is a member <strong>of</strong> the International Association<br />
for Plant Taxo<strong>no</strong>my and an Emeritus Member <strong>of</strong> the Botanical <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> America.<br />
Bananas are one <strong>of</strong> the world’s most important dessert fruits. <strong>The</strong>y are threatened by<br />
many diseases, and new genes need to be identified to facilitate the breeding <strong>of</strong> “diseasefree”<br />
crops. Wild banana populations are themselves, however, under threat <strong>of</strong> extinction<br />
in many areas, due to mass land-clearance. Through his research, Mr Häkkinen has<br />
sought to emphasise the importance <strong>of</strong> the study and conservation <strong>of</strong> wild Musa species<br />
to the wider public, through newspaper, radio and television coverage in West and East<br />
Malaysia, China and Finland. He has personally collected many ex-situ collections from<br />
Borneo, China and Malaysia, and has donated his wild Musa collection <strong>of</strong> 50 taxa to the<br />
ITC Gene Bank in Louvain, Belgium for the benefit <strong>of</strong> the international community.
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 63<br />
Most recently, his research collaboration with molecular systematists has taken his<br />
taxo<strong>no</strong>mic insights to a higher level, which will enable him to further develop and test<br />
his ideas and hypotheses.<br />
Mr Häkkinen’s standing within the scientific community is recognised by the support he<br />
receives from research organisations in Finland and many other countries. We are<br />
delighted to ack<strong>no</strong>wledge his significant achievements today by awarding him the H.H.<br />
Bloomer Award <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong>”.<br />
On receiving his medal, Mr Häkkinen thanked the <strong>Society</strong> for the ho<strong>no</strong>ur <strong>of</strong><br />
receiving this award which had come as a surprise to him. He commented that the<br />
award recognised his work with the Musacae family and his hope that his work would<br />
continue to draw attention to the need to conserve wild populations <strong>of</strong> the genus Musa.<br />
d. <strong>The</strong> President presented the 2009 Bicentenary Medal to Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Michael Engel.<br />
<strong>The</strong> citation was read by the Zoological Secretary, Dr Vaughan Southgate as<br />
follows:<br />
“Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Michael Engel is Pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Senior<br />
Curator at the Natural History Museum, University <strong>of</strong> Kansas. From his initial interest<br />
in Apoidea (bees), Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Engel has extended his work to other insect families, giving<br />
him a diverse k<strong>no</strong>wledge which he applies to the broad issues <strong>of</strong> insect distribution,<br />
speciation and evolutionary divergence.<br />
Born in 1971, Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Engel pursued his undergraduate studies at the University <strong>of</strong><br />
Kansas, receiving a BS in Cellular Biology and a BS in Chemistry in 1993. He then<br />
undertook postgraduate studies in entomology at Cornell University and was awarded<br />
his doctorate in 1998. He then took up a post as a Research Scientist at the American<br />
Museum <strong>of</strong> Natural History before returning to his alma mater, the University <strong>of</strong> Kansas<br />
in 2000 as Assistant Pr<strong>of</strong>essor in the College <strong>of</strong> Liberal Arts and Sciences and Assistant<br />
Curator at University’s Natural History Museum. Following promotion to Associate<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor and Associate Curator in 2005, he was appointed to his current roles (Pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />
and Senior Curator) in 2008.<br />
A daring and original thinker, Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Engel has a mastery <strong>of</strong> a number <strong>of</strong> different<br />
groups <strong>of</strong> insects. Many researchers become specialists on fossil or living taxa; Pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />
Engel is an authority on both. His research has led to the discovery <strong>of</strong> many new species<br />
and new diag<strong>no</strong>stic characters, a seminal contribution to our k<strong>no</strong>wledge <strong>of</strong> the biodiversity<br />
<strong>of</strong> insects and their evolution. In recent years, much <strong>of</strong> his work has focused on<br />
determining the phylogeny and evolutionary history <strong>of</strong> the Isoptera (termites), a<br />
particularly difficult group <strong>of</strong> insects; work for which he received the prestigious<br />
Guggenheim Award.<br />
An accomplished entomologist, with an international reputation, his entomological and<br />
paleontological research has taken him to numerous countries, and earned him a number<br />
<strong>of</strong> awards, most recently the Charles Schuchert Award from <strong>The</strong> Paleontological <strong>Society</strong><br />
<strong>of</strong> America, presented to a person under 40 whose work reflect excellence and promise<br />
in the science <strong>of</strong> paleontology. His research has also resulted in a phe<strong>no</strong>menal publication<br />
record. He has published more than 275 scientific papers and mo<strong>no</strong>graphs, and coauthored<br />
two major books, all before reaching the age <strong>of</strong> 40!<br />
Described by a colleague as “far and away the pre-eminent entomologist <strong>of</strong> his generation,<br />
with a great potential for future achievements”, we are delighted to present the Bicentenary<br />
Medal for 2009 to Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Michael Engel”.
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Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Engel thanked the <strong>Society</strong> for the ho<strong>no</strong>ur <strong>of</strong> receiving the Bicentenary<br />
Medal, commenting that he was very fortunate to study the astonishing diversity <strong>of</strong><br />
insects. He thanked his mentors, colleagues, students and family for their<br />
encouragement and support.<br />
e. <strong>The</strong> President presented the 2009 Irene Manton Prize to Dr Chris Yesson. <strong>The</strong><br />
citation was prepared and read by the Collections Secretary, Mrs Susan Gove, as<br />
follows:<br />
“<strong>The</strong> winner <strong>of</strong> this year’s Irene Manton Prize is Dr Chris Yesson.<br />
A former management consultant, Chris gave up a successful business career in order to<br />
retrain as a biologist. He began retraining by spending six months doing voluntary field<br />
work in Vietnamese forests, then went on to obtain an MSc degree in Advanced Methods<br />
in Taxo<strong>no</strong>my and Biodiversity at Imperial College and the Natural History Museum.<br />
Chris conducted his doctoral research under the supervision <strong>of</strong> Dr Alastair Culham at the<br />
University <strong>of</strong> Reading, submitting his thesis entitled “Investigating Plant Diversity in<br />
Meditteranean Climates”; by the time <strong>of</strong> the viva, three papers had already been published<br />
in international journals, and one had been awarded a prize at the BioMed-Central Biology<br />
awards. Chris integrated ecological niche models and phylogenetic reconstruction to<br />
investigate the impact <strong>of</strong> historic climate change on the evolutionary history <strong>of</strong> plants from<br />
Mediterranean climates. His studies focussed on Cyclamen (Myrsinaceae) and Drosera<br />
(Droseraceae), and he found that climatic niches are heritable and most lineages have<br />
probably persisted for millions <strong>of</strong> years in their present locations. However, many <strong>of</strong> these<br />
species may be at threat from the predicted future climate change.<br />
Competition for the Irene Manton Prize is always stiff and this year was <strong>no</strong> exception.<br />
<strong>The</strong> members <strong>of</strong> the assessment committee were so impressed with Chris’s thesis I would<br />
like to quote from their reviews. “<strong>The</strong> candidate displays mastery <strong>of</strong> a range <strong>of</strong> skills<br />
well beyond what might be expected from a person just beginning their research career.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is sufficient work here for 2 PhDs!” Reading many excellent PhD theses is a<br />
humbling task, and each one seems excellent – Chris’s however, was truly impressive –<br />
“I have <strong>no</strong> doubt that this is THE ONE from my perspective in terms <strong>of</strong> the general<br />
importance <strong>of</strong> its findings, the breadth <strong>of</strong> the community to which it will appeal and the<br />
publications already out or in the works. It is also the one that I imagine I’ll go back to<br />
for a closer read (or at least the papers arising).”<br />
After finishing his PhD Chris worked on a Darwin-funded project to produce DNA<br />
barcodes for Mexican cacti and we are delighted to hear that from June he will start<br />
working at the Zoological <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong> for the EU-funded Coralfish project, where<br />
he will apply his skills to the problem <strong>of</strong> deep-sea coral distribution, which are at least<br />
partly plants! When provided with a choice <strong>of</strong> art work from which to select his prize,<br />
Chris chose a very appropriate drawing <strong>of</strong> Banksia nutans, or Nodding Banksia, a small<br />
shrub from South Western Australia, a key warm mediterranean climate region featured<br />
Chris’s thesis. Chris, we are delighted to award you the Irene Manton Prize for 2009”.<br />
f. <strong>The</strong> President presented the 2009 Jill Smythies Award for published botanical<br />
art to Dr Halina Bednarek-Ochyra. <strong>The</strong> Collections Secretary, Mrs Susan Gove<br />
read the citation which she had prepared as follows:<br />
“<strong>The</strong> winner <strong>of</strong> this year’s Jill Smythies Award is Dr Halina Bednarek-Ochyra.<br />
Dr Halina Bednarek-Ochyra is an Assistant Pr<strong>of</strong>essor in the Institute <strong>of</strong> Botany <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Polish Academy <strong>of</strong> Sciences. An accomplished botanist, her main research interests are
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 65<br />
the taxo<strong>no</strong>my and phytogeography <strong>of</strong> bryophytes and she counts 158 research papers<br />
and 12 mo<strong>no</strong>graphs and books amongst her publications.<br />
Halina received her MSc in Botany from the Jagiellonian University in 1984 and<br />
continued her studies as a postgraduate student in the Institute <strong>of</strong> Botany <strong>of</strong> the Polish<br />
Academy <strong>of</strong> Sciences where she has worked since 1987. In 1995 she gained her PhD;<br />
her doctoral thesis was based on a taxo<strong>no</strong>mic revision <strong>of</strong> the moss genus Racomitrium<br />
in Poland. She was appointed Curator <strong>of</strong> Bryophytes in 1993 and served as editorial<br />
assistant for the Fragmenta Floristica et Geobotanica from 1991-1996. Since 1997 she<br />
has been co-editor <strong>of</strong> Atlas <strong>of</strong> the geographical distribution <strong>of</strong> mosses in Poland. Her<br />
major scientific achievements include a mo<strong>no</strong>graph <strong>of</strong> the genus Racomitrium in Poland,<br />
published in 1996 in which she proposed the first detailed infrageneric classification <strong>of</strong><br />
this genus and a world conspectus <strong>of</strong> its species, and co-authorship <strong>of</strong> the Liverwort<br />
Flora <strong>of</strong> Antarctica published in 2000. She is currently working on a mo<strong>no</strong>graphic<br />
study <strong>of</strong> the genus Bucklandliella, in the extra-Holarctic and on <strong>The</strong> Liverwort Flora <strong>of</strong><br />
the Prince Edward Islands in the Subantarctic.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Jill Smythies Award however, recognises Halina’s exceptional talent, as a botanical<br />
illustrator, in particular the illustrations within <strong>The</strong> Illustrated Moss Flora <strong>of</strong> Antarctica,<br />
published by Cambridge University Press in November 2008. <strong>The</strong> first modern Flora <strong>of</strong><br />
mosses <strong>of</strong> this continent in the Southern Hemisphere, this publication is greatly enhanced<br />
by the full page <strong>of</strong> detailed clear line drawings including the habit, stem cross-sections,<br />
leaves and leaf structures which accompany each taxon. Members <strong>of</strong> the judging panel<br />
described her work as “Outstanding. Although many <strong>of</strong> the other artists works were<br />
considered by the panel <strong>of</strong> the highest standard, the consistent high quality, accuracy<br />
and sheer number <strong>of</strong> plates produced over the years, made the difficult choice a unanimous<br />
one”. You will have the opportunity to view some <strong>of</strong> this work in an exhibition, which<br />
she has kindly mounted in the <strong>Society</strong>’s library for this occasion.<br />
In recognition, therefore, <strong>of</strong> her significant achievements to botanical illustration, we<br />
are delighted to present <strong>The</strong> Jill Smythies Award for 2009 to Dr Halina Bednarek-Ochyra”.<br />
Dr Bednarek-Ochyra expressed her gratitude to the <strong>Society</strong> and thanked her<br />
<strong>no</strong>minee and collaborators for their support. She presented the <strong>Society</strong> with an<br />
illustration <strong>of</strong> Aloina brevirostris (Hook & Grev.) Kindb, which the President accepted<br />
on behalf <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Society</strong>.<br />
8. <strong>The</strong> Treasurer presented the Accounts for 2008. <strong>The</strong>se are to be found in the 2008<br />
Annual Report.<br />
a. <strong>The</strong> Treasurer summarised the <strong>Society</strong>’s financial accounts as presented in the<br />
Annual Report previously circulated to all Fellows. He drew attention to the<br />
dramatic drop in the <strong>Society</strong>’s Asset value as a result <strong>of</strong> the stock markets’ severe<br />
down turn during the year. Despite this situation the <strong>Society</strong>’s Council agreed that<br />
all the main projects and the refurbishment programme budgeted for action during<br />
the year should continue to completion.<br />
He remarked it was pleasing to report that the income received during the year<br />
was above budget due in the main to the increased revenue from the joint Journal<br />
publishing programme with Wiley/Blackwell. It was even more pleasing that through<br />
the tight control by the staff and <strong>of</strong>ficers the expenditure budget had been held below<br />
budget for the day-to-day activities <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Society</strong>, thus leaving a surplus <strong>of</strong> £61,087 at<br />
the end <strong>of</strong> the year.
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THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
Project costs totalled £180,278 and Refurbishment costs covering the Library and<br />
Offices totalled £390,599 with a contribution from the Nora McMillan Fund this was<br />
reduced to £275,285 to be found from general funds.<br />
<strong>The</strong> final Balance Sheet showed that the <strong>Society</strong>’s Assets at the end <strong>of</strong> the year<br />
after paying for the Projects and Refurbishment work along with the major reduction<br />
in investment losses <strong>of</strong> £741,214 were £1,596,934, compared with £2,819,553 in 2007.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Treasurer drew attention to the problems that the <strong>Society</strong> had during the year<br />
with the fraudulent activities being perpetrated to their Lloyds Bank accounts which<br />
had caused considerable time wasting and worry for the <strong>Society</strong>’s Financial Controller.<br />
He warmly thanked Priya for all his hard work and perseverance on behalf <strong>of</strong> the<br />
<strong>Society</strong>. He also drew attention to the success Victoria had in exceeding her target for<br />
the use <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Society</strong>’s rooms despite all the building work. Finally he thanked all the<br />
staff for their commitment and hard work during a difficult but very successful year!<br />
He then asked if there were any questions or further information he could provide.<br />
None were forthcoming.<br />
b. Dr N Keith Maybury read a statement prepared by Dr Sara Churchfield, a member<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Audit Review Committee who was unable to attend due to illness. “In<br />
accordance with Bye-Law 12.6, I confirm that I attended the Audit Review<br />
Committee <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> on 12 March 2009 at which the Accounts for<br />
2008 were presented. After a thorough review <strong>of</strong> the written statement <strong>of</strong> accounts,<br />
together with accompanying <strong>no</strong>tes and opportunities for discussion with other<br />
members <strong>of</strong> the Review Committee (including the Treasurer and a representative<br />
<strong>of</strong> the <strong>of</strong>ficial Auditors), I am satisfied that the Accounts give a true and fair view<br />
<strong>of</strong> the <strong>Society</strong>’s finances as at 31 December 2008. I therefore move that they be<br />
accepted at the Annual Meeting on 21 May.” This was carried unanimously on a<br />
show <strong>of</strong> hands.<br />
c. <strong>The</strong> Treasurer moved that the firm <strong>of</strong> K<strong>no</strong>x Cropper, <strong>of</strong> 16 New Bridge Street,<br />
EC4V 6AX, be appointed as auditors in accordance with Bye-Law 12.5, which<br />
was accepted unanimously. He then proposed a change in the banking arrangements<br />
to Barclays Bank, Wembley and Park Royal Branch. Both motions were carried<br />
unanimously with a show <strong>of</strong> hands.<br />
9.<br />
a. <strong>The</strong> President gave his address on “Fragmentary Evidence”. In this address he<br />
discussed how plant anatomy helps people who suspect their houses have been<br />
damaged by tree roots, detectives looking for forensic evidence in murder cases,<br />
archaeologists with puzzling plant remains, <strong>of</strong>ten <strong>of</strong> wood or charcoal, antique<br />
dealers who want to check authenticity <strong>of</strong> furniture, food manufacturers with strange<br />
foreign material in their products, pharmaceutical companies who need to be sure<br />
that the dried herbs they are buying are <strong>no</strong>t adulterated, and those concerned with<br />
suspected poisoning by plants.<br />
b. On behalf <strong>of</strong> the Fellows the President was thanked for his talk. Dr Pat Morris<br />
moved that the President’s address be published and circulated and the motion<br />
was passed.<br />
c. Pr<strong>of</strong>essor David Cutler then handed over the Presidency to Dr Vaughan Southgate
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 67<br />
who thanked the outgoing President for his leadership throughout a very busy<br />
three years in the <strong>Society</strong>’s history which had included the Tercentenary<br />
Celebrations. Dr Southgate named his Vice Presidents for the coming year as Dr<br />
Mike Fay, Dr Keith Maybury, Dr Sandra Knapp and Dr Malcolm Scoble.<br />
10. Any other valid business.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re being <strong>no</strong> other valid business, the President declared the meeting closed,<br />
<strong>no</strong>ting the dates <strong>of</strong> forthcoming meetings. <strong>The</strong> next Anniversary Meeting will be on<br />
Thursday 20 May 2010 at 4pm.<br />
RUTH TEMPLE<br />
Executive Secretary<br />
Free Taxo<strong>no</strong>my and Biodiversity lectures<br />
‘What’s in a Name? Taxo<strong>no</strong>my and Biodiversity’:<br />
Saving our Experts from Extinction<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong> /<br />
Ecology and Conservation Studies <strong>Society</strong><br />
Joint Lecture Series in conjunction with Birkbeck Institute <strong>of</strong><br />
Environment, University <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong><br />
This series <strong>of</strong> lectures focuses on the importance <strong>of</strong> being able to define and<br />
identify the natural world with examples <strong>of</strong> the need and uses <strong>of</strong> giving species<br />
a name, and organising them into systems <strong>of</strong> classification.<br />
<strong>The</strong> introductory overview will review uncertainty in the numbers <strong>of</strong> species on<br />
Earth and their extinction rates, and survey how resulting problems can be<br />
addressed for effective conservation action. Following lectures will highlight<br />
the importance <strong>of</strong> taxo<strong>no</strong>my to fungi, forensics, invertebrates, and control <strong>of</strong><br />
illegal use <strong>of</strong> endangered species. In the final session a panel <strong>of</strong> experts will<br />
review how the next generation <strong>of</strong> naturalists can be inspired and discuss how<br />
to encourage more people to enter the field <strong>of</strong> taxo<strong>no</strong>my, where there is a<br />
critical shortage.<br />
Join the debate. All welcome. Free admission but booking is essential.<br />
<strong>The</strong> venue on 16 <strong>October</strong> is the John S<strong>no</strong>w Lecture <strong>The</strong>atre, <strong>London</strong> School<br />
<strong>of</strong> Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppell Street, WC1E 7HT. For all other<br />
dates the venue is Room B04, Birkbeck University <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong>, 43 Gordon<br />
Square, WC1H 0PD.<br />
Email: environmentevents@FLL.bbk.ac.uk for booking details, (or telephone<br />
020 631 6473)<br />
All lectures are from 6.30 to 8.30 pm on the following Fridays. Doors open at<br />
6.00pm Programme overleaf.
68<br />
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3)<br />
· 16 <strong>October</strong> ‘Taxo<strong>no</strong>my, Systematics and Conservation Biology’<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Lord Robert May <strong>of</strong> Oxford, past President <strong>of</strong> the Royal <strong>Society</strong><br />
· 23 <strong>October</strong> ‘Out <strong>of</strong> Sight, Out <strong>of</strong> Mind: our lives depend on the hidden<br />
kingdom – Fungi’<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Lynne Boddy, President <strong>of</strong> the British Mycological <strong>Society</strong><br />
· 30 <strong>October</strong> ‘Control <strong>of</strong> Illegal Use <strong>of</strong> Endangered Species and Incorrectly<br />
Identified Species’<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Monique Simmonds, Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens,<br />
Kew<br />
· 6 November ‘Botany, paly<strong>no</strong>logy, and mycology: powerful weapons in the<br />
forensic armoury’<br />
Patricia Wiltshire, Forensic Ecologist<br />
· 13 November ‘Taxo<strong>no</strong>my, Natural History and the Digital World’<br />
Dr Malcolm J. Scoble, Keeper <strong>of</strong> Entomology, Natural History Museum<br />
· 20 November Panel Presentation and Discussion: ‘Inspiring New Naturalists<br />
and Taxo<strong>no</strong>mists’<br />
Working with Children: Gail Bromley, Education Development Manager,<br />
RBG, Kew<br />
Higher Education: David Streeter, Reader in Ecology, University <strong>of</strong> Sussex<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Taxo<strong>no</strong>my: Dr Mike Fay, Head <strong>of</strong> Genetics, Jodrell Laboratory,<br />
RBG, Kew<br />
Full details <strong>of</strong> speakers and their lectures can be accessed at<br />
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/environment/news/lectures<br />
<strong>The</strong> Burlington House Lecture<br />
<strong>The</strong> New World <strong>of</strong> Galileo<br />
Monday 26 <strong>October</strong> 2009<br />
A free lecture for the general public.<br />
In this richly illustrated lecture Pr<strong>of</strong>essor William Shea, the holder <strong>of</strong> the Galileo Chair<br />
<strong>of</strong> the History <strong>of</strong> Science at the University <strong>of</strong> Padua, at which Galileo himself taught for<br />
18 years, will explain his astro<strong>no</strong>mical discoveries and explain why Galileo saw what<br />
he saw. “Seeing is believing but <strong>no</strong>t everyone has the same visual experience and we all<br />
tend to see what we expect to find!”<br />
• Time: 6pm<br />
• Venue: <strong>The</strong> Geological <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong> (Piccadilly entrance)<br />
• Speaker: Pr<strong>of</strong>essor William R Shea (University <strong>of</strong> Padua)<br />
• Admission: Admission is free but by ticket only, available from Alys<br />
Hilbourne at the Geological <strong>Society</strong>. Tel: 020 7432 0981 or<br />
email alys.hilbourne@geolsoc.org.uk
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME <strong>25</strong>(3) 69<br />
TH E HISTORY <strong>of</strong><br />
N ATURAL HISTORY<br />
Second Edition<br />
G AVIN BRIDSON<br />
TH E HISTORY O F NATURAL HISTORY (Second Edition) by Gavin<br />
Bridson, is an essential source <strong>of</strong> information for scientists, researchers<br />
and enthusiastic amateurs. This an<strong>no</strong>tated bibliography, the only one to<br />
encompass the entire subject area, provides a unique key to information<br />
sources for this wide-ranging subject. This revised and greatly updated<br />
edition was published by <strong>The</strong> <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>London</strong> in <strong>October</strong> 2008.<br />
Priced at only £65 (+ p&p)<br />
For more details: Email Victoria@linnean.org<br />
Tel: +44 (0)20 7434 4479<br />
or visit www.linnean.org for details.
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Linnean</strong> <strong>Society</strong><br />
Programme<br />
2009<br />
15 th Oct Thurs A GENERAL NATURALIST IN MODERN TIMES<br />
6 pm Martin Jacoby FLS Evening Meeting and Book Sale<br />
26 th Oct Mon <strong>The</strong> Burlington House Lecture – at the Geological <strong>Society</strong><br />
6 pm THE NEW WORLD OF GALILEO<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor William R. Shea, Univ. Padua (page 68 for details)<br />
28 th Oct Wed Palaeobotany Specialist Group Day Meeting**<br />
29 th Oct Thurs Paly<strong>no</strong>logy Specialist Group Day Meeting **<br />
5 th Nov* Thurs THE POETRY OF SCIENCE<br />
6 pm Kelley Swaine Evening Meeting<br />
10 th Nov Tues CHARLES DARWIN, LIVE AT THE LINNEAN! (p10 for more info.)<br />
6 pm Richard Milner FLS .Evening Meeting**<br />
17 th Nov Tues THE GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO: Day Meeting **<br />
A LIVING LABORATORY<br />
† Sarah Darwin FLS and Sandra Knapp FLS<br />
19 th Nov Thurs LINNEAN SOCIETY DEBATE After<strong>no</strong>on and<br />
4 pm † Andrew Sheppy FLS and Sandra Knapp FLS Evening Meeting **<br />
2 nd Dec Wed FOUNDERS DAY: NATURAL HISTORY<br />
6 pm COLLECTIONS AS MODELS OF DIVERSITY Evening Meeting<br />
Sandra Knapp FLS<br />
4 th Dec Fri THE DARWIN LECTURE: SCIENCE AND MEDICINE<br />
6 PM Steve Jones Lecture at the Royal <strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong> Medicine**<br />
10 th Dec Thurs EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS<br />
6 pm Sir Martin Evans Evening Meeting<br />
2010<br />
21 st Jan* Thurs RESTORING BRITISH BIODIVERSITY: NATIVE<br />
6 pm MAMMAL REINTRODUCTIONS AND THE<br />
SCOTTISH BEAVER TRIAL<br />
Evening Meeting<br />
Tony King FLS<br />
18 th Feb Thurs THOMAS BLAKISTON’S LINE: A VICTORIAN<br />
6 pm EARLY CONTRIBUTION TO BIOGEOGRAPHY<br />
Andrew Davis<br />
Evening Meeting<br />
* Election <strong>of</strong> new Fellows † organiser(s) ** Registration required<br />
Unless stated otherwise, all meetings are held in the <strong>Society</strong>’s Rooms. Evening meetings start<br />
at 6.00pm with tea available in the library from 5.30. For further details please contact the<br />
<strong>Society</strong> <strong>of</strong>fice or consult the website (address inside the front cover).<br />
Typesetting and layout by Mary J. Morris, West Mains, <strong>London</strong> Road, Ascot SL5 7DG