ABSTRACT
The study of natural history had long been a strong tradition within British intellectual life well before the middle of the 19th century when debates over evolution made it a matter of interest to almost everyone. In addition to collecting fossils or plants, beetles or butterflies, the country clergymen or rich gentlemen who acquired a passion for the study of nature also recorded their observations of interesting examples of animal behavior. Such observations suddenly gained great theoretical significance in the context of Darwin’s theories on the nature of instinctive behavior first appearing in the Origin of Species (1859), and then in the context of his arguments for mental continuity between animals and man in the Descent of Man (1871).
