continuity across multiple generations; (2) incremental variations among offspring; and (3) the Malthusian factor of inherent population growth rate, producing so many unsupportable individuals. Put them together and you had an explanation of how species transmutation occurs.
So much for the notebook. In his personal diary, he wrote: âWasted entirely the last week of November.â Was he complaining, apologizing, or bragging jocularly about a newfound sense of lightness? In early December, Emma came to town and stayed two weeks with her brother and sister-in-law, during which she and Charles threw themselves into the merry fuss of setting up a household. Then she went back to Staffordshire. To the end of the year, he occupied himself with further house-hunting, a bit of reading, and being laid up intermittently by his mystery illness. Having decided the marriage question, he was now impatient for the wedding to occur. His letters to Emma were cheery. In one, at the end of a long day, he described himself complacently as âstupid & comfortable.â
On January 29, 1839, they were married in a small church near the Wedgwood mansion. Charlesâs brother didnât come up from London for the event, and Emmaâs mother stayed home sick. Dr. Darwin and Uncle Josiah had arranged bounteous financial settlements, formalized in a document at the county records office: £10,000 from Dr. Darwinâs deep pocket, £5,000 from the Wedgwood side, to be invested on behalf of the newlyweds at 4 percent annually. That meant Charles wouldnât need a job and theyâd have servants in the house. They were young gentlefolk from affluent, provident families. The marriage ceremony was performed by Reverend Allen Wedgwood, a cousin to everybody. There was no reception, but not because the Wedgwoods couldnât afford a party. There was no honeymoon, but not because the couple didnât want to be alone.
Charles and Emma left Staffordshire that day. By way of matrimonial celebration, they shared sandwiches and a bottle of water on the train down to London. It was their chosen style. A quiet pair, disinclined toward ebullient display. And he had to get back to work.
The Kiwiâs Egg
1842â1844
7
T hink of it as a birdâs egg, taking form slowly inside him. Ovulation had occurred. Fertilization had occurred. Now came growth, from the microscopic scale of a single ovum toâ¦well, to whatever size it would reach before laying. Donât think of a henâs egg or a gooseâs, or even the hefty egg of an avian lummox like the ostrich. Since the ovum was natural selection and the bird was Charles Darwin, think of it as the egg of a kiwi.
The kiwis are long-beaked, globular, flightless birds, strange creatures with hairlike feathers who run around at night eating insects and worms. There are several species and subspecies, all embraced by the genus Apteryx , all endemic (that is, native there and nowhere else) to New Zealand. They belong to the ratite group, meaning that ostriches, rheas, emus, and cassowaries are their closest living relatives. The elephant birds of Madagascar and the moas of New Zealand, two sets of extinct giants, were part of that group, too. If these birds are all related and all flightless, you might ask, how did they arrive in such remote and disconnected places as South America (rheas), Australia (emus and cassowaries), New Guinea (more cassowaries), Madagascar, and New Zealand? The answer seems to be that they walked. The ratite lineage dates back to an era before the ancient southern supercontinent, now known as Gondwanaland, separated into its continental and island fragments. Traveling on foot, the ancestral ratites dispersed all across Gondwanaland and then, sometime later, the land fragments drifted apart. The giant birds rode away like penguins on an iceberg.
Compared with other ratites, the kiwis are smallâno bigger than an overfed chicken. Taxonomists have
So much for the notebook. In his personal diary, he wrote: âWasted entirely the last week of November.â Was he complaining, apologizing, or bragging jocularly about a newfound sense of lightness? In early December, Emma came to town and stayed two weeks with her brother and sister-in-law, during which she and Charles threw themselves into the merry fuss of setting up a household. Then she went back to Staffordshire. To the end of the year, he occupied himself with further house-hunting, a bit of reading, and being laid up intermittently by his mystery illness. Having decided the marriage question, he was now impatient for the wedding to occur. His letters to Emma were cheery. In one, at the end of a long day, he described himself complacently as âstupid & comfortable.â
On January 29, 1839, they were married in a small church near the Wedgwood mansion. Charlesâs brother didnât come up from London for the event, and Emmaâs mother stayed home sick. Dr. Darwin and Uncle Josiah had arranged bounteous financial settlements, formalized in a document at the county records office: £10,000 from Dr. Darwinâs deep pocket, £5,000 from the Wedgwood side, to be invested on behalf of the newlyweds at 4 percent annually. That meant Charles wouldnât need a job and theyâd have servants in the house. They were young gentlefolk from affluent, provident families. The marriage ceremony was performed by Reverend Allen Wedgwood, a cousin to everybody. There was no reception, but not because the Wedgwoods couldnât afford a party. There was no honeymoon, but not because the couple didnât want to be alone.
Charles and Emma left Staffordshire that day. By way of matrimonial celebration, they shared sandwiches and a bottle of water on the train down to London. It was their chosen style. A quiet pair, disinclined toward ebullient display. And he had to get back to work.
The Kiwiâs Egg
1842â1844
7
T hink of it as a birdâs egg, taking form slowly inside him. Ovulation had occurred. Fertilization had occurred. Now came growth, from the microscopic scale of a single ovum toâ¦well, to whatever size it would reach before laying. Donât think of a henâs egg or a gooseâs, or even the hefty egg of an avian lummox like the ostrich. Since the ovum was natural selection and the bird was Charles Darwin, think of it as the egg of a kiwi.
The kiwis are long-beaked, globular, flightless birds, strange creatures with hairlike feathers who run around at night eating insects and worms. There are several species and subspecies, all embraced by the genus Apteryx , all endemic (that is, native there and nowhere else) to New Zealand. They belong to the ratite group, meaning that ostriches, rheas, emus, and cassowaries are their closest living relatives. The elephant birds of Madagascar and the moas of New Zealand, two sets of extinct giants, were part of that group, too. If these birds are all related and all flightless, you might ask, how did they arrive in such remote and disconnected places as South America (rheas), Australia (emus and cassowaries), New Guinea (more cassowaries), Madagascar, and New Zealand? The answer seems to be that they walked. The ratite lineage dates back to an era before the ancient southern supercontinent, now known as Gondwanaland, separated into its continental and island fragments. Traveling on foot, the ancestral ratites dispersed all across Gondwanaland and then, sometime later, the land fragments drifted apart. The giant birds rode away like penguins on an iceberg.
Compared with other ratites, the kiwis are smallâno bigger than an overfed chicken. Taxonomists have
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