To understand a mockingbird: specimens that sparked Darwin’s theory of evolution
by Ian Sample Science correspondent
The Guardian, p. 3
November 14, 2008
The significance of the two birds lying side by side on a purple cushion with tags dangling from their feet is easy to miss. But the subtle differences — a strip of white on the wing, a smudge of dark on the breast — set Charles Darwin on course to develop the most important scientific theory ever conceived: the evolution of species through natural selection.
The mockingbirds are perhaps the most important specimens Darwin collected from the Galapagos during his five-year voyage aboard HMS Beagle in the 1830s, and today they go on show as part of a major exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London. It reveals Darwin as a tenacious scientist, a pragmatic lover, and a man pained by losing his religion.
