## Metadata - Author: [[David Quammen]] - Full Title: The Song of the Dodo - Category: #books ## Highlights - Writing on December 22, Darwin declared himself “extremely glad to hear that you are attending to distribution in accordance with theoretical ideas. I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good & original observation. ([Location 1592](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004G8QS7G&location=1592)) - Darwin was a cautious man burdened with a bold idea, which made him sometimes seem paralyzed by ambivalence. He was like a hen struggling to lay a grossly oversized egg. ([Location 1630](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004G8QS7G&location=1630)) - Two men, on opposite sides of the world, had made the same great discovery at the same time. All they had shared was a language, a sense of the question to be answered, a chance to travel, a willingness to exchange letters, a passing familiarity with Malthus, and an appreciation of the significance of island biogeography. ([Location 1810](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004G8QS7G&location=1810)) - History knows it as The Origin of Species. History tends to consider it the alpha point of evolutionary biology, but history is notoriously careless. ([Location 1822](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004G8QS7G&location=1822)) - The dodo itself stands as the best emblem of this general truth—that insular evolution often involves transforming an adventurous, high-flying ancestor species into a grounded descendant, no longer capable of going anywhere but extinct. It’s our reminder that insular evolution, for all its wondrousness, tends to be a one-way tunnel toward doom. ([Location 2372](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004G8QS7G&location=2372))