from him". When the voyage got under way, their first landfall was at St. Jago in the Cape Verde Islands in January 1832. McCormick and Darwin walked into the countryside together, and Darwin, influenced by Charles Lyell's ideas on geology, found the surgeon's approach old-fashioned: "He was a philosopher of rather an antient date; at St Jago by his own account he made general remarks during the first fortnight & collected particular facts during the last." McCormick became increasingly frustrated as FitzRoy took Darwin onshore, leaving McCormick behind without opportunities for collecting. The last straw came at Rio de Janeiro in April 1832, when FitzRoy arranged for Darwin's collection to be packaged and sent back to England. McCormick was invalided home, and as he recalled in his memoirs of 1884, "Having found myself in a false position on board a small and very uncomfortable vessel, and very much disappointed in my expectations of carrying out my natural history pursuits, every obstacle having been placed in the way of my getting on shore and making collections, I got permission from the admiral in command of the station here to be superseded and allowed a passage home in H.M.S. Tyne."<ref>{{cite journal|title = If Darwin Wasn't the Beagle'''s Naturalist, Why Was He on Board?|author = Burstyn|journal = The British Journal for the History of Science|volume = 8|issue = 1|year = 1975|pages = 62–69|doi = 10.1017/s0007087400013704|first = Harold L.|doi-access = free}}</ref>) McCormick subsequently became surgeon on the James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition between 1839 and 1842. On the latter voyage most of the naturalist's duties were performed by Joseph Dalton Hooker, with McCormick concentrating on geology and bird collecting, assisted by Thomas Abernethy. On 26 August 1844 McCormick was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. McCormick also led an unsuccessful search party in search of John Franklin in the Forlorn Hope. His autobiography was entitled Voyages of Discovery in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas and around the World (1884). Legacy The south polar skua (Stercorarius maccormicki'') was named for him by Howard Saunders. McCormick shot the type specimen on 12 January 1841, on Possession Island, Victoria Land, Antarctica. Devon Island's Macormick Bay, near the area he explored in search of Franklin's lost expedition, is named in McCormick's honor. MacCormick Fjord in NW Greenland was named after him by Robert Peary. See also European and American voyages of scientific exploration Notes References