Darwin was one of history's most industrious collectors of biological specimens.   Indeed his industriousness during the voyage of the Beagle set a standard for many subsequent generations.   He sent back to England crate after crate of fossils, mammals, birds, fishes, and reptiles, not to mention the geological specimens.   All specimens were labeled with date and locality.

Darwin was also one of history's most indefatigable scientific editors and authors.   Not only did he send all of these specimens back to England, but soon after he had returned he set to work in 1837 to publish descriptions of everything -- once again a precedent for many subsequent generations.

Also recall that Darwin had little training in science and no real credentials as a scientist.   His crates of specimens and a few articles in early scientific journals had certainly introduced him to the scientific establishment of his day, but after he returned from the voyage of the Beagle, he subsequently never held a scientific position.   Darwin was an amateur scientist.

How did Darwin pay his bills?   Money from his family and, especially, from his wife's family allowed him (and his wife and children) to live comfortably in a big house in the village of Down on the outskirts of London.   Soon after returning from the voyage of the Beagle, he had married his favorite cousin, the daughter of his mother's wealthy brother, whose family had started the firm that produced Wedgwood china, in part from clay imported from North Carolina [at least so I understand]!   It was a pretty pleasant life in Down -- he, his wife, and their 10 children lived long lives -- except for the death of his perky 10-year-old daughter from a mysterious disease in 1851 -- Darwin almost could not bear that loss.   At that time he was known only to a small group of friends and colleagues.   With some lapses as a result of his own illnesses and perhaps depression, he kept working.   Recall that the voyage of the Beagle ended in 1836 and that Darwin published "The Origin of Species" 23 years later in 1859.

When Darwin decided to publish his findings from the voyage of the Beagle despite his lack of scientific training, he sought specialists to write the descriptions of his specimens.   Eventually he found five scientists willing to work on his collections of vertebrates, one each on fossil mammals, living mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles.   Others worked on his collections of plants and invertebrates.   He himself authored a popular account of the voyage ("The Voyage of the Beagle", still in print) and his first major scientific book on the origins of coral reefs.   The specialist for fossil mammals, Richard Owen, over two decades later took a scientific position opposing Darwin's theory of the origin of species by natural selection!

The specialist for birds was John Gould, a young taxidermist for the Zoological Society of London (then a small organization that promoted discussion among naturalists and operated a small zoo -- the predecessor of today's London zoo in Regent's Park).   Gould would later become one of the most famous ornithological artists of the nineteenth century and would publish dozens of huge illustrated volumes.   His greatest achievement would be the first complete descriptions and illustrations of Australian birds and mammals.

Each of the five specialists who worked on Darwin's collections of vertebrates wrote a report.   These five reports were published individually, one a year between 1839 and 1843, in a series entitled "The zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. [His Majesty's Ship] Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N. [Royal Navy], during the years 1832 to 1836".

Although a specialist appears as the author on the cover of each report, Darwin himself edited the reports and in fact wrote a large proportion of some of them.   Darwin also convinced the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's [young Queen Victoria's] Treasury to pay most of the publication costs -- in other words, he obtained a government grant for the work.

Take the report on birds, for example, which was published in 1841 as Part III of "The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle".   Its title page reads

"Birds, described by John Gould, Esq....; with a notice of their habits and ranges, by Charles Darwin, Esq....; and with an anatomical appendix, by T.C. Eyton, Esq...."

Darwin's introduction explains the real situation.   It states that Gould wrote the descriptions of the species and made the preliminary identifications.   Darwin wrote sections on his observations of the habits and habitats of the birds (almost as much as Gould had written).   And the ornithologist then in charge of birds in the early British Museum, a man named Gray, revised the classification and the scientific names of the birds, because by the time of publication Gould had already left England for Australia.

For more on Gray and the labels on Darwin's specimens, see