On the Origin of Species to be expanded with his research results and published if he died prematurely. In November 1844, the anonymously published popular science book "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation", written by Scottish journalist Robert Chambers, widened public interest in the concept of transmutation of species. "Vestiges" used evidence from the fossil record and embryology to support the claim that living things had progressed from the simple to the more complex over time. But it proposed a linear progression rather than the branching common descent theory behind Darwin's work in progress, and it ignored adaptation. Darwin read it soon after publication,
Reactions to On the Origin of Species breeding that would eventually form part of "The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication". He wrote to Asa Gray and used the example of fantail pigeons to argue against Gray's belief "that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines", with the implication of Creationism rather than Natural Selection. Over the winter he organised a third edition of the "Origin", adding an introductory historical sketch. Asa Gray had published three supportive articles in the "Atlantic Monthly". Darwin persuaded Gray to publish them as a pamphlet, and was delighted when Gray came up with the title of "Natural Selection Not