18-Jul-2009, 17:56
The University of Cambridge Zoological Museum has a rather wonderful box of beetle specimens collected by Charles Darwin when he was at the university. The young Darwin had an inordinate fondness for beetles.
Darwin’s beetle collection
Darwin’s son, Sir Frances Darwin, donated his father’s beetles to the university. The collection was originally in a cabinet. Unfortunately, in the 1870′s, one G. R. Crotch began sorting some or all of the collection into boxes, all but one of which was later lost/misplaced.
15-Jun-2009, 09:42
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.
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