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Preface and acknowledgments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Daniel Pauly
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
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Summary

The idea for this book emerged in the late 1980s when I attempted to find an interesting Darwin quote to add to a volume I was then editing on the impact of El Niño on Peruvian fishes and fisheries. I remembered from earlier readings that Darwin had been in Peru, where he collected specimens of the species which Leonard Jenyns later described as Engraulis ringens, the Peruvian anchoveta.

But I did not find any suitable quote: the indexes of books by, or about, Darwin that I consulted all covered ‘finches’ but not ‘fishes’. Still, the pun was obvious, and I decided to write a short essay on Darwin's work on fishes, to be titled Darwin's Fishes, if only to get it out of my system.

However, caught in the iron grip of the Law of Unintended Consequences, I ended up writing a book-size chrestomathy. Fortunately, I had the help of Darwin (who contributed about 45 000 of his words, i.e. almost one third of the entire book) and, as we shall see, the help of friends who provided relevant information and helped verify facts.

The book now completed, I will attempt to cover my tracks, and pretend that this was written to fill the ‘major gap in scholarship’ that is usually recruited in such cases.

Type
Chapter
Information
Darwin's Fishes
An Encyclopedia of Ichthyology, Ecology, and Evolution
, pp. xiii - xv
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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  • Preface and acknowledgments
  • Daniel Pauly, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book: Darwin's Fishes
  • Online publication: 08 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511606595.002
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  • Preface and acknowledgments
  • Daniel Pauly, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book: Darwin's Fishes
  • Online publication: 08 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511606595.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface and acknowledgments
  • Daniel Pauly, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book: Darwin's Fishes
  • Online publication: 08 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511606595.002
Available formats
×