DARWIN'S PROBLEM 51 



He had gone no farther than this with his questions when 

 the Beagle returned to England in I836. 1 And now began 

 a new epoch in his life. He had his collection of fossils 

 from South America. He also had his collection of modern 

 skeletons from the same country, from the Galapagos Islands, 

 from England itself ; and he wished to find some laws of 

 life which would explain the differences between them, and 

 which would, at the same time, show that all forms of life 

 are connected. / 



He asked himself whether or not the earlier kinds became 

 extinct before the later ones were created ; why they became 

 extinct ; why present-day creatures on the Galapagos Islands 

 are more like the buried giants of South America than like 

 modern animals in Africa ; why there are so many species 

 of different plants and animals in the world, etc. The list 

 of his questions was very long when he reached England, 

 and he saw that he must have still more facts before he could 

 even try to draw conclusions. 



To get these facts he turned his attention to pigeons, com- 

 paring them with each other. Among them he found the 

 Carrier pigeon, with its large nostrils, its wide mouth, its 

 lengthened eyelids, its long, steady flight over land and 

 water ; also the Tumbler, with its way of flying high up 

 and tumbling down, heels over head, at unexpected moments. 

 Then there was the Pouter, with its stretched-out body, wings, 

 and legs, and its enormous crop, which it proudly inflates 

 to prodigious size; the Jacobin, with feathers that grow 



1 During this voyage the Beagle visited the following places, in the order 

 in which they are -mentioned : Cape de Verde Islands, St. Paul's Rocks, 

 Fernando, Noronha, South America, Galapagos Islands, Falkland Islands, 

 Tierra del Fuego, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, Helena, As- 

 cension. The Beagle did not go around the world, as at first intended. 



