Charles Darwin has been in his grave for 124 years, and his famous
voyage as naturalist-in-residence on the Beagle ended 170
years ago. Yet he remains almost as controversial a figure today as
he was in life. For confirmation on this point, just ask your local
school board.

In this slim and gracefully written volume, devoted birdwatcher
Lyanda Lynn Haupt combs through Darwin's voluminous writings and
tries to tease out exactly what he was trying to accomplish, how he
reasoned it out and what lessons Darwin can teach us today.

Early on she makes clear her own strongly pro-Darwin slant, but she
mainly steers clear of the modern Creationist/Evolutionist
controversy until the last few chapters of her book; and when she
at length tackles it head-on, her conclusion does not fit snugly
into either pigeonhole. Along the way, however, she treats the
reader to a vastly informative and entertaining look at the mind of
an earnest young scientist at work.

Charles Darwin was only 22 when he stepped aboard the Beagle
at Plymouth in late 1831. The voyage was supposed to last two years
but ended up taking nearly five, and most of that time was spent on
land, principally in South America where Haupt contends Darwin grew
from an aimless amateur into a rigorous professional scientist. He
tramped through dense forests, befriended birds and earthworms,
studied plants, pumped native people for information --- and wrote
everything down in mind-numbing detail. And when not actually
working, he wrote detailed letters to family and friends telling
them what he was up to in probably more detail than they really
wanted or needed.

His basic conclusion, arrived at slowly after all this dogged grunt
work, was (as conveyed by Haupt) that humans, plants and animals
are all part of one vast continuum, a single act of creation that
leaves Darwin awestruck. He specifically rejects the idea that man
is the pinnacle of this process, somehow the result of a "special
creation"; he is rather just the most recent step in a grand
evolving scheme that is still unfolding. Darwin did come to reject
the dogmas of organized religion (though his father had destined
him for the clergy), but his final grand vision does leave room for
a "creator."

A basic tenet of his faith is that nothing --- not the lowliest
weed, not the grungiest earthworm --- is too small to be noticed as
part of this great evolutionary process.

Hacking her way through the vast jungle of Darwin's prose, Haupt
finds room for all sorts of entertaining digressions. There is a
lovely chapter on whether animals actually feel human-like emotions
--- do they experience pride, sadness, love, desire? There is also
an earnest discussion on whether animals should be killed purely
for the purpose of scientific research. Darwin himself, early in
his trip, obtained his specimens by enthusiastically whacking
jungle animals on their heads with a hammer, then ripping open the
resulting corpses to see how they were constructed and what was in
their stomachs. Later in life, however, he seems to have decided
that such tactics were barbaric.

Haupt's main field of expertise is birds, and she pays particular
attention to Darwin's adventures with the birds of South America.
The reader is treated to the antics of such exotic critters as the
Least Seed Snipe, Many-Colored Rush Tyrant and Black-Throated
Huet-Huet. We also learn, almost without realizing it, that
earthworms are deaf and how well Andean condors can smell.

Haupt also relates Darwin's adventures in the wild to episodes in
her own life that reflect them --- but there is no sense of
annoying digression or padding, since the lady writes lyrically and
well. Her book ends as you might expect it to, with a plea for
humans to recognize the sacredness of all of earth's plants and
creatures, and to reform our anti-environmental ways before it is
too late.

PILGRIM ON THE GREAT BIRD CONTINENT will not completely satisfy
either side in the current nasty controversy over Darwin. There is
no doubt that Haupt basically supports the Evolutionist side, but
she has provided plenty of thoughtful ideas for people of good will
on both sides to ponder.