Charles Darwin was born in 1809, the year of the publication of Lamarck's _Philosophie zoologique_, and of Oken's _Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie_. There was thus a whole generation between the first emergence of the Evolution theory and its later revival. Darwin's father was a physician, and his education was not a regular one. In his youth he seems to have devoted much time and enthusiasm to hunting, and only very slowly to have taken up regular studies towards a definite end. In accordance with his father's wishes, he studied medicine for a time, but soon abandoned it to devote himself to botany and zoology. Before he had had time to distinguish himself in any special way in these subjects, he was offered, in his twenty-first year, the post of naturalist on an English war-ship which was to make a voyage round the world, and that at a leisurely rate. This was decisive not only for Darwin's immediate studies, but for the work of his life, for, as he tells us himself, it was during this voyage on the _Beagle_ that the idea of the Evolution theory first came to him. While the vessel made a stay at the Galapagos Islands, west of South America, he noticed that quite a number of little land-birds occurred there which closely resembled those of the neighbouring mainland, but yet were different from them. Almost every little island had its own species, and so he concluded that all these might be descended from representatives of a few species which had long before drifted over from the mainland to these volcanic islands, become established there, and in the course of time taken on the character of new species. The problem of the transformation of species opened up before him, and he made up his mind to follow up the idea after his return, in the hope that by a patient collecting of facts, he would by and by arrive at some security with regard to this great question. I need not linger over any detailed account of his travels; one can readily understand how a voyage round the world, lasting for five years, would offer to the inquiring mind of a Darwin rich opportunities for the most varied observations. That he did not fail to make use of these is evidenced not only by his book on _The Origin of Species_, but by several more special works, published shortly after his return--his natural history of those remarkable sessile crustaceans, the barnacles or Cirripedia, and his studies on the origin of coral reefs. The first-named book still holds its own as a classic monograph on this animal group, with its wealth of forms; and the theory of the origin of coral reefs which Darwin elaborated has still many adherents, in spite of various rival interpretations.