We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
In the mid-1820s, Charles Darwin was in medical school at the University of Edinburgh. There he met the evolutionist Robert Grant. Grant was interested in zoophytes, organisms that were considered plantlike animals. He and others hoped these organisms might help bridge the gap between the two kingdoms. Darwin accompanied Grant on collecting trips to the Firth of Forth, and it was through this work that he had his first brush with scientific scholarship. Darwin delivered a short report to the Plinian Society, a natural history club, on his observations of the “ova” of Flustra, a seaweed-like aquatic invertebrate.
A few years later, while aboard the Beagle, Darwin’s interest in zoophytes continued. In his account of the voyage, he offered the following reflective description of one of these species, Virgularia patagonica:
Each polypus, though closely united to its brethren, has a distinct mouth, body, and tentacula. Of these polypi, in a large specimen, there must be many thousands; yet we see that they act by one movement; that they have one central axis connected with a system of obscure circulation; and that the ova are produced in an organ distinct from the separate individuals. Well may one be allowed to ask, what is an individual?
(1839b, 117)
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.