Animal Observations
By February 1838 Darwin was on to a new pocketbook, the maroon C notebook, and was investigating the breeding of domestic animals. He found the newspaper wholesaler William Yarrell at the Zoological museum a fund of knowledge, and questioned if breeders weren't going against nature in "picking varieties". He was now writing of "Descent" rather than transmutation, and hinting at ideas of "adaptation" to climate.
At the zoo on 28 March he had his first sight of an ape, and was impressed at the orang-utan's antics "just like a naughty child" when the keeper held back an apple. In his notes he wrote "Let man visit Ourang-outang in domestication, hear expressive whine, see its intelligence.... let him look at savage...naked, artless, not improving yet improvable & let him dare to boast of his proud preeminence." Here Darwin was drawing on his experience of the natives of Tierra del Fuego and daring to think that there was little gulf between man and animals despite the theological doctrine that only humanity possessed a soul.
On 1 April Charles wrote to his older sister Susan that he had also seen the rhinoceros in the zoo let out for the first time that spring, "kicking & rearing" and galloping for joy. He then passed on the gossip that Miss Martineau had been "as frisky lately the Rhinoceros.— Erasmus has been with her noon, morning, and night:—if her character was not as secure, as a mountain in the polar regions she certainly would loose it.— Lyell called there the other day & there was a beautiful rose on the table, & she coolly showed it to him & said “Erasmus Darwin” gave me that.— How fortunate it is, she is so very plain; otherwise I should be frightened: She is a wonderful woman". He began thinking about marriage himself, listing the pros and cons on the back of an old letter and noting that rather than being "a man tied down in London" going over information, "I have so much more pleasure in direct observation... In country, experiment & observation on lower animals, – more space."
Darwin found a pamphlet by Yarrell's friend Sir John Sebright with a passage reading:
A severe winter, or a scarcity of food, by destroying the weak and the unhealthy, has all the good effects of the most skilful selection. In cold or barren countries no animals can live to the age of maturity, but those who have strong constitutions; the weak and the unhealthy do not live to propagate their infirmities.
After reading the pamphlet, Darwin commented "excellent observations of sickly offspring being cut off so that not propagated by nature".
Sebright talked of females falling to "the most vigorous males" and of how "the strongest individuals of both sexes, by driving away the weakest, will enjoy the best food, and the most favourable positions, for themselves and their offspring."To Darwin, while nature removed runts and thrust the fit forward, "the whole art of making varieties" by selecting mates to breed an ornamental duck produced "a mere monstrosity propagated by art". Quizzing his cousin William Darwin Fox about crossing domestic breeds, he admitted for the first time that "It is my prime hobby & I really think some day, I shall be able to do something on that most intricate subject species & varieties." Pondering likely opposition to his ideas, he noted that there must have been "a thousand intermediate forms" between the otter and its land ancestor. "Opponents will say, show me them. I will answer yes, if you will show me every step between bull Dog & Greyhound."
Read more about this topic: Inception Of Darwin's Theory
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