Darwin Reaches the Galápagos

September 15, 1835

HMS Beagle anchored off the volcanic Galápagos Islands, and a seasick young naturalist named Charles Darwin began collecting finches, iguanas, and tortoises. He noticed that mockingbirds differed from island to island. It took him twenty years to understand what he had seen. The five weeks in the Galápagos planted the seed of natural selection.