180 years ago today: Darwin’s delight
Starlings have their murmurations, toads their knots, weasels their sneaks. I always felt the collective noun for beetles should be a fondness of beetles, after JBS Haldane’s reported response to a clergyman regarding what we might conclude about the creator by studying the natural world: that He must have an inordinate fondness for beetles.
In his youth, Charles Darwin also had an inordinate fondness for beetles. Late in life, he wrote in his autobiography:
No poet ever felt more delighted at seeing his first poem published than I did at seeing, in Stephens’ ‘Illustrations of British Insects,’ the magic words, “captured by C. Darwin, Esq.”
The Stephens in question was James Francis Stephens, a top entomologist, whom the young Darwin had visited in early 1829, later writing to his cousin:
On Monday evening I drank tea with Stephens: his cabinet is more magnificent than the most zealous Entomologist could dream of: He appears to be a very goodhumoured pleasant little man.
The momentous event of Darwin’s citation in Stephens’ illustrious journal occurred a few months later, 180 years ago today, on 15th June, 1829.
The Red Notebook is the blog of 
I wonder if any of these beetles were cited in the text?
I wonder if we can work to get “fondness” as the collective noun.
I certainly think we should try. (Pass it on.)