CHARLES DARWIN. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE BOY DARWIN. 



The First Paper — Taste for Natural Historj- — Birthplace — Early 

 School Days — Religious Nature — Books \Miich Influenced Him 

 — Associates — Introduction to Scientific Men — Taste for Sport. 



NE evening, in the year 

 1826, a tall, slender youth 

 rose at a meeting of the 

 Plinian Society of Edin- 

 burgh, and with some 

 embarrassment and hes- 

 itation unfolded a paper 

 and addressed the chair. 



The speaker was 

 Charles Danvin, and this 

 was his first public at- 

 tempt to convey to 

 others information which he had acquired regarding 

 natural objects. At this time Darwin was seventeen 



