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Author Costa, James T., 1963- author.

Title Darwin's backyard : how small experiments led to a big theory / James T. Costa.

Publication Info. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Bristol, Main Library - Non Fiction  576.82 COSTA    Check Shelf
 Burlington Public Library - Adult Department  576 COSTA    Check Shelf
 Glastonbury, Welles-Turner Memorial Library - Adult Department  576.82 COSTA    Check Shelf
 Middletown, Russell Library - Adult Nonfiction  576.82 COS    Check Shelf
 New Britain, Main Library - Non Fiction  576.82 COS    Check Shelf
 Newington, Lucy Robbins Welles Library - Adult Department  576.82 COSTA    Check Shelf
 Plainville Public Library - Non Fiction  576.82 COS    Check Shelf
 Portland Public Library - Adult Department  576.82 COS    Check Shelf
 Southington Library - Adult  576.82 COS    Check Shelf
 West Hartford, Noah Webster Library - Non Fiction  576.82 COSTA    Check Shelf

Edition First edition.
Description xviii, 441 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Note "Includes directions for eighteen hands-on experiments, for home, school, yard, or garden."--Jacket flap.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [379]-418) and index.
Contents Origins of an experimentiser -- Experimentising: going to seed -- Barnacles to barbs -- Experimentising: doing your barnacles -- Untangling the bank -- Experimentising: a taste for botany -- Buzzing places -- Experimentising: bees' cells and bubbles -- A grand game of chess -- Experimentising: getting around -- The sex lives of plants -- Experimentising: Darwinian encounters of the floral kind -- It bears on design -- Experimentising: orchidelirium -- Plants with volition -- Experimentising: Feed me, Seymour! -- Crafty and sagacious climbers -- Experimentising: Seek and ye shall find -- Earthworm serenade -- Experimentising: Get thee to a wormery.
Summary A portrait of Darwin as an inveterate experimenter describes how he used his home, garden, and the surrounding woodlands as a field station where he conducted hands-on experiments to test his ideas for the theory of evolution.
"James T. Costa takes readers on a journey from Darwin's childhood through his voyage on the HMS Beagle where his ideas on evolution began. We then follow Darwin to Down House, his bustling home of forty years, where he kept porcupine quills at his desk to dissect barnacles, maintained a flock of sixteen pigeon breeds in the dovecote, and cultivated climbing plants in the study, and to Bournemouth, where on one memorable family vacation he fed carnivorous plants in the soup dishes. Using his garden and greenhouse, the surrounding meadows and woodlands, and even taking over the cellar, study, and hallways of his home-turned-field-station, Darwin tested ideas of his landmark theory of evolution with an astonishing array of hands-on experiments that could be done on the fly, without specialized equipment. He engaged naturalists, friends, neighbors, family servants, and even his children, nieces, nephews, and cousins as assistants in these experiments, which involved everything from chasing bees and tempting fish to eat seeds to serenading earthworms. From the experiments' results, he plumbed the laws of nature and evidence for the revolutionary arguments of On the Origin of Species and his other watershed works. Beyond Darwin at work, we accompany him against the backdrop of his enduring marriage, chronic illness, grief at the loss of three children, and joy in scientific revelation. This unique glimpse of Darwin's life introduces us to an enthusiastic correspondent, crowd-sourcer, family man, and, most of all, an incorrigible observer and experimenter."--Jacket flap.
Subject Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882 -- Homes and haunts.
Down House (Bromley, London, England)
Evolution (Biology) -- History.
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882 -- Knowledge and learning.
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882 -- Childhood and youth.
Natural history -- Experiments -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Genre/Form Handbooks and manuals.
Biographies.
ISBN 9780393239898 (hardcover)
0393239896 (hardcover)
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