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CHAPTER XIII. 



CANON TRISTRAM THE FIRST PUBLICLY TO ACCEPT THE 

 THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION (1859). 



ALTHOUGH the historic meeting at the Linnean 

 Society appeared to produce but little effect, one 

 distinguished naturalist publicly accepted the theory 

 of natural selection before the publication of " The 

 Origin of Species," and therefore as the direct result 

 of Darwin's and Wallace's joint paper. This great 

 distinction belongs to Canon Tristram, as Professor 

 Newton has pointed out in his Presidential Address 

 to the Biological Section of the British Association at 

 Manchester in 1887 (" Reports," p. 727), at the same 

 time expressing the hope " that thereby the study of 

 Ornithology may be said to have been lifted above 

 its fellows." 



Canon Tristram's paper, " On the Ornithology of 

 Northern Africa" (Part iii., The Sahara, continued), 

 was published in The Ibis, vol. i., October, 1859. The 

 important conclusions alluded to above are contained 

 at the end of the section upon the species of desert 

 larks (pp. 429-433) : 



" Writing with a series of about 100 larks of various species 

 from the Sahara before me, I cannot help feeling convinced 

 of the truth of the views set forth by Messrs. Darwin and 

 Wallace in their communications to the Linnean Society, to 

 which my friend Mr. A. Newton last year directed my atten- 

 tion. ... It is hardly possible, I should think, to illustrate 

 this theory better than by the larks and chats of North Africa." 



