Although Charles Darwin is best noted as the father of evolution, within the Origin of Species  there is also a blossoming fascination with what would become the science of ecology. Ecology can be defined as the scientific study of the relationships that living organisms have with each other and their environment. This budding ecology can be seen throughout, but is particularly evident in Darwin’s “clover-bee- cat” illustration of how “plants and animals are bound together by a complex web of relations”(Darwin 74). Similarly, Rachel Carson shares a ecological fascination with “intersections and connections” (Carson xii) while maintaining an ever present awareness of the whole. Curiously,  in “A Fable for Tomorrow”, Carson employs a strikingly similar illustration of how one organism can alter an entire ecosystems.

To illustrate the metaphor of a “complex web of relations”, Darwin drew on a local clover and its relationship to other organisms. “ I have found the visits of bees are….highly beneficial to the fertilization of our clovers… if the whole genus of humble bees became extinct…in England…the red clover would..wholly disappear.”(Darwin 75) Darwin goes on to explain the correlation between large numbers of field mice and a decreased number of bee nests, raided by mice. “ Now the number of mice is largely dependent…on the number of cats…near villages and towns I have found the nests of humble bees more numerous which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice.”(Darwin 75) With apparent glee, Darwin connects an abundance of clover to a large number of felines. “Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers…might determine, through the intervention of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district!” Darwin’s delight in making these ecological connections is apparent in the speedy syntax of this passage. We can almost see an excited smile on Darwin’s face as he closes the passage with an exclamation point.

In contrast to the joyful tone of Darwin’s web of relations, Carson employs a similar description to express the devastating influence one organism can affect throughout an entire ecosystem. In “A Fable for Tomorrow”, Carson paints a pastoral paradise of humans and nature living harmoniously together. A dark blight then creeps over the land striking animals and humans alike with sickness and death. Violently ill songbirds birds fall silent and the chickens lay infertile eggs. Like Darwin, Carson cleverly mentions the relationship of bee’s and plant life. “The apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit… No witchcraft, no enemy had silenced the rebirth of life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.”(Carson 3) Carson ends the passage and begins Silent Spring with the foreboding sentiment that this will be a vision of the future if one organism, man, is unchecked in his affect on the whole.