19 J THE ZOOJ..OGIST. 



Although known at this time to only a small circle of scientific 

 friends, his abilities as a naturalist soon became more widely 

 recognised; and in 1831, when the Hon. Capt. Fitzroy — after- 

 wards better known as Admiral Fitzroy, of meteorological fame — 

 was ordered, with the 'Adventure' and 'Beagle,' to survey the 

 coasts of Antarctic America, Charles Darwin was appointed 

 Naturalist to the Expedition. 



He sailed in December, 1831, and returned in October, 1836, 

 during which interval he visited the Straits of Magellan and 

 the coasts north of that Strait, and crossed the country from 

 Valparaiso to Buenos Ayres, visiting besides the Galapagos, 

 Ascension, the coasts of Australia, and other regions touched by 

 the vessels during their voyage. In every locality visited he 

 made large and important collections of rare or new animals and 

 plants, recording in his journal a mass of valuable notes to be 

 afterwards utilised. His services on this expedition were highly 

 appreciated by Capt. Fitzroy, who paid a deserved tribute to 

 his merits when receiving the medal voted him by the Royal 

 Geographical Society ; and the esteem in which he was held by 

 his fellow voyagers has been fitly perpetuated in the names 

 bestowed on Port Darwin in North Australia, and Darwin Mount 

 and Sound, in Tierra del Fuego. 



On his return from this expedition he settled at Down, near 

 Beckenham, in Kent, where he has ever since resided, and 

 where he commenced and prosecuted those literary and scientific 

 labours which have since procured for him a world-wide repu- 

 tation. In 1839 appeared his 'Journal' of a Naturalist, giving 

 a narrative of his voyage, and written in a style so pleasing, 

 and withal so instructive, that it has maintained a popu- 

 larity to this day, and is regarded as quite a model work of 

 its kind. 



Between 1839 and 1H-12 appeared the official 'Zoology of the 

 Voyage of Her Majesty's ship Beagle,' in four quarto volumes, 

 by "various eminent hands," though the whole work was edited 

 by Mr. Darwin, and the habits of the animals and their range 

 were given by his own pen. In this work, for the first time, were 

 described those great mammals of geological ages which are found 

 on the Argentine Pampas, in addition to a series of observations 

 on almost every other group of mammals. Not to enumerate 

 many detached memoirs of interest, the next conspicuous woi*k of 



