270 Britain's Heritage of Science 



[No. 3.] 



Octobris 15. Carolus Darwin admissus est pensionarius 



minor sub Mro Shaw." 



Charles Darwin came into residence in the Lent Term 

 of 1828. 



Late in life men are apt to look back upon their College 

 days with a somewhat exaggerated regret for lost oppor- 

 tunities, and Charles Darwin felt that at Cambridge his 

 " time was wasted, as far as his academical studies were 

 concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at school." 

 But this must not be taken too literally. He seems to have 

 passed his University examinations with ease, and a letter 

 recording his joy at getting through the " Little-Go " shows 

 that he at any rate took them seriously. 



Apparently Darwin's experiences at Edinburgh had given 

 him a distaste for lectures, and it is unfortunate that this 

 distaste kept him away from the teaching of Sedgwick. He 

 attended, however, the botanical lectures of Henslow, which 

 were then crowded with students as well as with senior 

 members of the University, and he revelled in the excursions 

 which Henslow used to conduct, on foot or in coaches, or 

 down the river in barges, "or to some more distant place, 

 as to Gamlingay, to see the wild lily of the valley and to 

 catch on the heath the rare natterjack." He was, in fact, 

 known to the senior members of the University as " the 

 man who walks with Henslow," and the man who walked 

 with Henslow did not spend three years at Cambridge wholly 

 in vain. 



Amongst other absorbing pursuits was that of collecting 

 insects, especially beetles. He was first interested in ento- 

 mology by his cousin, W. Darwin Fox, of Christ's, who 

 had kindred tastes and with whom he frequently corre- 

 sponded in fact, most of the letters written from Christ's 

 College that remain were addressed to him. 



Darwin received his degree on April 26, 1831, and it was 

 during this term and the subsequent Easter term, when he 

 was still in residence, that Henslow persuaded him to begin 

 the study of geology. There must have been something 

 unusual about Darwin, for he seems to have made friends 

 with men much older than himself, and some of them, one 



