Australian birds at the Crystal Palace

Abstract In Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Charles Lyell appraised the distinct contribution made by his protégé, Charles Darwin (On the Origin of Species (1859)), to evolutionary theory: ‘Progression … is not a necessary accompaniment of variation and natural selection [… Darwin’s theory accounts] equally well for what is called degradation, or a retrogressive movement towards a simple structure’. In Rhoda Broughton’s first novel, Not Wisely, but Too Well (1867), written contemporaneously with Lyell’s book, the Crystal Palace at Sydenham prompts precisely this sort of Darwinian ambivalence to progress; but whether British civilization ‘advance[s] or retreat[s]’, her narrator adds that this prophesized state ‘will not be in our days’ – its realization exceeds the single lifespan. This article argues that Not Wisely, but Too Well is attentive to the irreconcilability of Darwinism to the Victorian ‘idea of progress’: Broughton’s novel, distinctly from its peers, raises the retrogressive and nihilistic potentials of Darwin’s theory and purposes them to reflect on the status of the individual in mid-century Britain.

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The Bird Assemblage of the Darwin Region (Australia): What Is the Effect of Twenty Years of Increasing Urbanisation?

Diversity ◽

10.3390/d13070294 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (7) ◽

pp. 294

Author(s):

Sarah E. Fischer ◽

Andrew C. Edwards ◽

Patrice Weber ◽

Stephen T. Garnett ◽

Timothy G. Whiteside

Keyword(s):

Urban Development ◽

Bird Community ◽

Feeding Guilds ◽

Australian Birds ◽

Bird Survey ◽

Species Analysis ◽

Community Data ◽

Bird Assemblage ◽

Significant Change ◽

The Difference

There has been considerable urban development in the Darwin region over the last twenty years; as for most fauna in Australia since colonisation, the potential effects to the bird assemblage were expected to be disastrous. To provide a broad overview of changes, bird survey data from 1998 and 2018 were extracted from BirdLife Australia’s ‘Atlas of Australian Birds’ database. A total of 165 species were categorised into primary food source feeding guilds and levels of food specialisation. This was integrated into ArcGIS along with land use change mapping from 1998 and 2018 to investigate its impact on bird assemblages. There was no significant change in overall species numbers when all sites were analysed. However, when sites were separated into those with increased urbanisation or decreased greenspace, several sites showed a significant change in the number of species. For the majority of species, analysis of primary food types found no difference in the proportion of species within the assemblages between 1998 and 2018, regardless of the level of urbanisation or greenspace; the exception being those species that primarily feed on insects, where the difference was just significant. An analysis using bird community data sorted into levels of food specialisation also found no difference between 1998 and 2018 despite habitat changes. These findings suggest that although there has been considerable urban development in the Darwin region, bird communities are remaining relatively stable.

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