56 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



BY WILLIAM H. DALL. 



Charles Robert Darwin, son of Dr. Robert Waring Darwin, F. R. S., 

 and Emma Wedgewood, grandson of Dr. Erasmus Darwin and 

 Josiah Wedgewood, was born at Shrewsbury, England, February 

 1 2th, 1809. He died of disease of the heart at his residence,- 

 Downe Court, Beckenham, Kent, at 4 P. M., April 19, 1882, and 

 consequently had attained the age of 73 years, 2 months, and 7 

 days. At Shrewsbury his childhood was passed and his education 

 was obtained at the once famous Shrewsbury Grammar School, 

 presided over by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Butler, afterward Bishop of 

 Litchfield and Coventry. 



At the age of sixteen he entered the University of Edinburgh 

 (1825) where he remained two years. Even at this early period he 

 had become a student of natural history, and read his first scientific 

 paper before the Plinian Society. It was "On the Movement of 

 the Ova of Flustra, ' ' one of the incrusting marine corallines. 



In 1827 he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, where he grad 

 uated as a Bachelor of Arts four years later. Here he fell under the 

 influence of the teachings of Prof. John Stevens Henslow, an excel 

 lent botanist, whose instruction doubtless did much to determine 

 the field of study subsequently occupied by his pupil. 



In 1831 Captain Fitzroy, R. N., offered to share his cabin with any 

 competent naturalist who would accompany him on his prospecting 

 voyage to South America in H. M. S. Beagle, detailed for surveys in 

 that region. Mr. Darwin, then only twenty-two years of age, offered 

 his services with the stipulation that he should control the collections 

 made, and was accepted. The Beagle sailed November 27, 1831, 

 from Plymouth, and returned to England on the 2d of October, 1836. 

 During a large part of the voyage Mr. Darwin suffered greatly from 

 sea-sickness, or some difficulty which simulated it, and which, in some 

 form, returned at intervals throughout his whole life, as sudden fits of 



