Charles Darwin set sail on the ship HMS Beagle on December 27, 1831, from Plymouth, England. Darwin was twenty-two years old when he was hired to be the ship’s naturalist. Most of the trip was spent sailing around South America. There Darwin spent considerable time ashore collecting plants and animals. Darwin filled notebooks with his observations of plants, animals, and geology. The trip was an almost five-year adventure and the ship returned to Falmouth, England, on October 2, 1836.
Throughout South America, Darwin collected a variety of bird specimens. One key observation Darwin made occurred while he was studying the specimens from the Galapagos Islands. He noticed the finches on the island were similar to the finches from the mainland, but each showed certain characteristics that helped them to gather food more easily in their specific habitat. He collected many specimens of the finches on the Galapagos Islands. These specimens and his notebooks provided Darwin with a record of his observations as he developed the theory of evolution through natural selection.
