A Man To Watch Darwin was something of a scientific celebrity
when he got back to England. The strange fossils and unfamiliar
animals he had shipped home gained him entry into London's
learned circles. Mere months after he left the Beagle, Darwin
presented his first paper--on the uplift of the Andes--at the
Geological Society. Determined to earn the respect of the men he
called the "great guns," Darwin threw himself into work. Sorting
his Beagle specimens and arranging for experts to analyze them
were his first priority. What these authorities told him about
his specimens--particularly the fossils and the birds--would
profoundly affect his developing theories. Darwin never claimed
to be a botanist. "I knew no more about the plants I had
collected than the Man in the Moon," he wrote his old Cambridge
mentor, John Henslow--humorously overstating his ignorance, as
he often did. In fact, Henslow had taught him well, and Darwin
was a very systematic plant collector. He plucked, pressed and
brought back to England