Darwin’s Finches Tapestry

“Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends” wrote Charles Darwin in his book The Voyage of the Beagle. What Darwin thought were completely different species of birds, which he collected during his voyage on the Beagle, in fact turned out to be different members of the same species. Yet their remarkable differences, especially of the beaks, fascinated Darwin and helped him cement the ideas of transmutation of species and Evolution.