Stott tells the story of the collective discovery of evolution, from Aristotle walking the shores of Lesbos with his pupils to Al-Jahiz, an Arab writer in the first century; from Leonardo da Vinci searching for fossils in the mine shafts of the Tuscan hills to Denis Diderot in Paris exploring the origins of species while under the surveillance of the secret police; and the brilliant naturalists of the Jardin de Plantes, finding evidence for evolutionary change in the natural history collections stolen during the Napoleonic wars.  (NAT258, $17.00)