 As the reader will see, this is tantalizingly similar to contemporary conceptions of drift. But Darwin does not develop the idea further; in particular, he does not tell us why the distributions of such variations would be fluctuating over time or how it is that they would ultimately become fixed. The first serious (and mathematical) treatments of drift are usually traced to two of the founders of population genetics, Sewall Wright and R.A. Fisher, although neither claimed to have developed the ideas behind drift (Beatty 1992). Wright (1951) credits John Gulick (1873) with the genesis of the idea whereas Fisher (1922b) first discussed the idea as derived from the work of A.C. and A.L. Hagedoorn (1921), although Wright (1931a) cites the Hagedoorns too. It is unclear who first uses the term “drift” in this context; it appears as early as Wright (1929). So, let us briefly examine Gulick and the Hagedoorns in order to understand the origins of the term “drift”.