In the late nineteenth century, the long domination of taxonomic natural history was brought to an end by the combined impact of evolutionary theory and the new biology of the laboratory. As the twentieth century began, ethology and ecology also emerged as recognised disciplines and added a further dimension to the study of nature. In contrast to taxonomic natural history, which focused on the description of organisms for purposes of identification and systematic arrangement, these emerging disciplines sought a wider and deeper understanding of nature through consideration of the origins and evolution of life, the internal make-up and functioning of organisms, the behaviour of living things, and the interrelationships occurring among organisms in a shared environment.

Woolf's interest in developments in the study of nature is demonstrated by her allusions to the work of nature writers, scientists, and science popularisers. In addition to her well-documented familiarity with and respect for Darwin's work, she refers in her fiction to T. H. Huxley and to Gregor Mendel's laws of inheritance (MEL 62; VO 55; MD 85, 33; ND 385). She was acquainted with Jean-Henri Fabre's work on insect behaviour; she alludes to Richard Jeffries; and she read and reviewed W. H. Hudson's nature writing, expressing admiration for both his literary style and his approach to the natural world. Over the winter of 1931–2, she ‘dip[ped] into The Sciences of Life [sic]’, a survey of approaches to the study of nature by H. G. Wells, Julian Huxley, and G. P. Wells (Liv: 418).