It’s 150 years since Darwin made one of the the most significant breakthroughs in scientific history—the theory of natural selection. But if it hadn’t been for a young ornithologist on the other side of the world, his seminal work might never have appeared. Robin McKie tells the extraordinary story behind The Origin of Species.

Robin McKie’s essay:

I

n early 1858, on Ternate in Malaysia, a young specimen collector was tracking the island’s elusive birds of paradise when he was struck by malaria. ‘Every day, during the cold and succeeding hot fits, I had to lie down during which time I had nothing to do but to think over any subjects then particularly interesting me,’ he later recalled. > > >

Click here to read the rest of McKie’s essay.