OFTEN I have had to sit on a lecture platform when I was going to speak, and listen to a long introduction. It bored me stiff and likewise the audience. I wanted to get at the business in hand and the job I came for. That’s the way I feel about this book. It is […]

I have stated in the preface to the first Edition of this work, and in the “Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle,” that it was in consequence of a wish expressed by Captain Fitz Roy, of having some scientific person on board, accompanied by an offer from him of giving up part of his […]

[My father’s autobiographical recollections, given in the present chapter, were written for his children,–and written without any thought that they would ever be published. To many this may seem an impossibility; but those who knew my father will understand how it was not only possible, but natural. The autobiography bears the heading, ‘Recollections of the […]