MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Darwin collected Uruguayan bird egg rediscovered in Cambridge

On the 200 anniversary of Charles Darwin birth and in the same month of 1833, when HMS Beagle anchored in the Bay of Maldonado, Uruguay, a volunteer rediscovered in Cambridge a bird egg collected by the world famous scientist in Uruguay.

Researchers have known that the naturalist collected 16 bird eggs during his trip between 1831 and 1836 but all were thought to be lost. But one sample – that of the Tinamou bird of Uruguay - has been discovered by volunteer Liz Wetton as she catalogued a collection at the Cambridge Zoology Museum.

The records seem to indicate that Darwin himself was responsible for damage caused to the heavily cracked egg after packing it in too small a box during or following his famous voyage.

The chocolate brown egg, --slightly smaller than a hen's egg-- was among the museum's 10.000strong collection from Darwin being partly catalogued by Liz Wetton who has spent half a day at the Museum each week for the past ten years where she faithfully sorts and re-boxes the Museum's bird egg collection.

She merely commented that the specimen had C. Darwin written on it before moving to the next drawer. It was only when Mathew Lowe, Collections Manager, was reviewing her work that he discovered no one knew about the existence of this specimen.

“There are so many historical treasures in the collection Liz did not realize this was a new discovery. To have rediscovered a Beagle specimen in the 200th year of Darwin's birth is special enough, but to have evidence that Darwin himself broke it is a wonderful twist.”

After reading Liz's notes, Lowe and Curator of Ornithology Dr Mike Brooke, traced the specimen's origin in the notebook of Professor Alfred Newton, a friend of Darwin's and Professor of Zoology in the latter 19th Century.

Prof Newton had written: ”One egg, received through Frank Darwin, having been sent to me by his father who said he got it at Maldonado (Uruguay) and that it belonged to the Common Tinamou of those parts.

“The great man put it into too small a box and hence its unhappy state.”

Darwin himself mistook the bird for a partridge at first. And in his notebooks from 1833, he wrote that the bird had a “high shrill chirp” and that its flesh was “most delicately white” when cooked.

“The great man put it into too small a box and hence its unhappy state.”

Museum Director Professor Michael Akam said: “This find shows just how valuable the work of our loyal volunteers is to the Museum. Only Liz has examined each of the many thousands of eggs in our collection. Without her we would not have found this unique specimen.”

“It was an exhilarating experience. After working on the egg collections for ten years this was a tremendous thing to happen”, said Ms Wetton.