Darwin's Invocation of Audubon?

In Darwin’s Ch. 6, “Difficulties on Theory,” in the section in which he addresses “the origin and transitions of organic beings with peculiar habits and structure,” he invokes Audubon and his observations of the frigate bird, which was the enemy of the brown pelican/savior figure in the bird allegory I set up in my pelican presentation. It is interesting to me that he invokes Audubon here in the middle of a parodying an evangelist sermon, and not just Audubon, but his observation of this particular bird.

Darwin regularly maintains a calm tone and a clinical methodology; for instance, several pages before this invocation of Audubon, Darwin informs us, “I will now give two or three instances of diversified and of changed habits in the individuals of the same species” (168). Here Darwin performs his usual calm observation and description. Yet, as he proceeds through these anomalous varieties, he becomes more and more excited. For instance, he describes a woodpecker in La Plata which, though every bit a woodpecker in voice, color and form, does not climb trees: “and on the plains of La Plata, where not a tree grows, there is a woodpecker, which in every essential part of its organization, even its colouring, in the harsh tone of its voice, and undulatory flight, told me plainly of its close blood-relationship to our common species; yet it is a woodpecker which never climbs a tree!” (169). I think I can count on one hand the number of times Darwin makes this kind of an exclamation in this text, and breaking the sentence into so many short clauses increases the pace of the sentence such that we can feel his excitement building. He proceeds from here into a catalogue of anomalous water-bird behavior, finally erupting into a repetition of “He who believes…” (170), taking on the tone of an evangelist preacher.

We have noted in the past that Darwin tends to repeat himself, though we’ve debated about whether that works against or in service of his argument. Regardless, the purpose of his repetitions seems to have been at the very least elusive. Here, it seems pretty clear to me that Darwin is mocking: “He who believes that each being has been created as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise…,” “He who believes in separate and innumerable acts of creation will say…,” “He who believes in the struggle for existence and in the principle of natural selection will acknowledge…” (170). Darwin’s readers could almost see him at the pulpit shouting down to his congregation, or, for those of us here at Indiana University, we can easily imagine him outside of Woodburn Hall yelling at us. But, oddly, I think, the last one who believes something believes against the other two, because he believes in natural selection. This person also engages his mind by acknowledging, rather than simply feeling or saying.

Between the first two of these “He who believes” Darwin invokes Audubon, it seems to me, as some kind of prophet or witness or visionary, though I’m not sure where to take that. Darwin mock-preaches that surely those who think each species has been created as-is must feel surprise when they find those species have parts that do not seem appropriate for their behavior. Here, Darwin’s command of capitalization lapses, when he asks, “What can be plainer than that the webbed feet of ducks and geese are formed for swimming? yet there are upland geese with webbed feet which rarely or never go near the water; and no one except Audubon has seen the frigate-bird, which has all its four toes webbed, alight on the surface of the sea” (170). Comparing this to a similar construction in which he asks about woodpeckers, “Can a more striking instance of adaptation be given than that of a woodpecker for climbing trees and for seizing insects in the chinks of the bark? Yet in North America…” (169), shows Darwin capitalizing “yet” following a question in a less heated moment. Leading into his Audubon invocation, his lowercase “yet” following a completed question suggests to me a loss of precision due to, perhaps, his getting caught up in the excitement of mock-sermonizing (of course, I’d need to look at other editions to make sure this isn’t just a copying error). So what can we make of this invocation of Audubon witnessing the only alighting of a frigate pelican on the sea, the only alighting of something like a Satan-figure, in the midst of mocking evangelist preachers?

Audubon's Frigate pelican can be found here:

http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/ornithology/frames/plates.htm

I’ll post my presentation about the pelicans for easy-reference.