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Earthworm Ecology pp 5–18Cite as

Darwin on earthworms — the contemporary background and what the critics thought

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Abstract

From December 1831 until October 1836 Charles Darwin participated in the famous journey round the world on the British sailing ship ‘Beagle’. During 1837 he worked intensively on the material he had collected in the last five years and on he manuscripts and notes of his studies of the coasts and countries he had visited. By now his health was somewhat affected and, as he wrote to a friend, the doctors urged him strongly in 1837 to ‘knock off all work and go and live in the country for a few weeks’. These weeks he spent at the country seat of his uncle Josiah Wedgwood in Maer, Staffordshire. Here Wedgwood told him about his own observations on earthworms, which he had made previously on his pastures.

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Authors
  1. O. Graff
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Merlewood Research Station, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, UK

    J. E. Satchell

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© 1983 Chapman and Hall Ltd

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Graff, O. (1983). Darwin on earthworms — the contemporary background and what the critics thought. In: Satchell, J.E. (eds) Earthworm Ecology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5965-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5965-1_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-009-5967-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-5965-1

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