During the survey voyage of HMS "Beagle", Darwin was unaware of the significance of the birds of the Galápagos. He had learned how to preserve bird specimens from John Edmonstone while at the University of Edinburgh and had been keen on shooting, but he had no expertise in ornithology and by this stage of the voyage concentrated mainly on geology. In Galápagos he mostly left bird shooting to his servant Syms Covington. Nonetheless, these birds were to play an important part in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.