94 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 



Darwin seemed to prefer to work out and write out his ideas 

 alone. Once at least, however, he shared the toil with fiis friend, 

 Mr. Wallace, and later, in several instances, with his sons, Francis 

 and George Darwin. « 



Regarding the separately published works of Darwin, there is 

 much of interest from the bibliographical point of view. The con- 

 scientiousness with which the author profited by the criticisms of 

 others, revising, improving, and extending his generalizations, 

 makes each new edition seem like a separate production. Whole 

 chapters were stricken out and new ones inserted ; facts of doubtful 

 character were replaced by others of a more positive nature and 

 more recent acquisition. 



Time forbids that I should refer to the details of publication of 

 more than one work. The inquiring student will find his wants 

 satisfied in the several lists which have already been published. 



I will give the history of but one work, the most important of 

 all, the "Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection." The 

 first edition of this work received the signature of the author on 

 November 24, 1859, and was published the same year. The second 

 edition, which appeared soon after, "was little more than a .re- 

 print of the first." "The third edition was largely corrected and 

 added to, and the fourth and fifth still more largely." The sixth 

 edition, which appeared in 1872, was likewise largely amended, and 

 had reached its twenty thousand in 1878. In the meantime foreign 

 editions and translations began to appear. The American and 

 French editions at first kept pace with the English, the second Amer- 

 ican being from the second English, and the third French from the 

 third English. The Germans, coming in a little later, published 

 their second edition from the third English, and their third, from 

 the fourth English one. The last editions in all these languages 

 were derived, I believe, from the sixth English one. "The Italian 

 is from the third, the Dutch and three Russian editions from the 

 second English editions, and the Swedish from the fifth English 

 edition." 



