EDward Blyth
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Edward Blyth (23 December 1810 – 27 December 1873) was an English
zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...
who worked for most of his life in India as a curator of zoology at the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta. He set about updating the museum's catalogues, publishing a ''Catalogue of the Birds of the Asiatic Society'' in 1849. He was prevented from doing much fieldwork himself, but received and described bird specimens from A.O. Hume, Samuel Tickell, Robert Swinhoe among others. His ''Natural History of the Cranes'' was published posthumously in 1881.


Early life and work

On 23 December 1810, Blyth was born in London. His father, a clothier, died in 1820 and his mother sent him to Dr. Fennell's school in
Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * W ...
. He took an interest in reading, but was often to be found spending time in the woods nearby. Leaving school in 1825, he went to study
chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...
, at the suggestion of Dr. Fennell, in London under Dr. Keating at St. Paul's Churchyard. He did not find the teaching satisfactory and began to work as a pharmacist in
Tooting Tooting is a district in South London, forming part of the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is located south south-west of Charing Cross. History Tooting has been settled since pre-Anglo-Saxons, Saxon times. The name is of Anglo-Saxon ori ...
, but quit in 1837 to try his luck as an author and editor. In 1836, he produced an annotated edition of Gilbert White's ''Natural History of Selborne'' which was reprinted in 1858. He was offered the position of curator at the museum of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal The Asiatic Society is an organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of " Oriental research" (in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions). It was founded by the philologist Will ...
in 1841. He was so poor that he needed an advance of 100 pounds to make the trip to
Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
. In India, Blyth was poorly paid (the Asiatic Society did not expect to find a European curator for the salary that they could offer), with a salary of 300 pounds per year (which was unchanged for twenty years), and a house allowance of 4 pounds per month. He married in 1854, and tried to supplement his income by writing under a pseudonym (''Zoophilus'') for the ''Indian Sporting Review,'' and traded live animals between India and Britain to wealthy collectors in both countries. In this venture he sought the collaboration of eminent people such as
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
and
John Gould John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist who published monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould (illustrator), Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, includ ...
, both of whom declined these offers. Although a curator of a museum with many responsibilities, he contributed mainly to
ornithology Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...
, often ignoring the rest of his work. In 1847, his employers were unhappy at his failure to produce a catalogue of the museum. Some Asiatic Society factions opposed Blyth, and he complained to
Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomy, comparative anatomist and paleontology, palaeontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkabl ...
in 1848: He also found the ornithologist
George Robert Gray George Robert Gray (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoology, zoologist and author, and head of the Ornithology, ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum, London f ...
, keeper at the British Museum, uncooperative in helping him with his ornithological research far away in India. He complained to the trustees of the museum but it was dismissed with several character references in favour of Gray including Charles Darwin. Blyth's work on ornithology led him to be recognized as the ''father of Indian ornithology'' a title later transferred to
Allan Octavian Hume Allan Octavian Hume, Order of the Bath, CB Indian Civil Service, ICS (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British political reformer, ornithologist, civil servant and botanist who worked in British Raj, British India and was the founding spirit ...
. He married a widow, Mrs. Hodges (born Sutton) who had moved to India, in 1854. She however died in December 1857, a shock which led to his health deteriorating from then on.


On natural selection

Edward Blyth wrote three articles on variation, discussing the effects of
artificial selection Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant ...
and describing the process in nature as restoring organisms in the wild to their
archetype The concept of an archetype ( ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, philosophy and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main mo ...
(rather than forming new
species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
). However, he never actually used the term "
natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...
". These articles were published in ''The Magazine of Natural History'' between 1835 and 1837. In February 1855
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
, seeking information on variations in domesticated animals of various countries, wrote to Blyth who was "much gratified to learn that a subject in which I have always felt the deepest interest has been undertaken by one so competent to treat of it in all its bearings" and they corresponded on the subject. Blyth was among the first to recognise the significance of
Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 pap ...
's paper "On the Law which has regulated the introduction of Species" and brought it to the notice of Darwin in a letter written in
Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
on 8 December 1855: :"What think you of Wallace's paper in the ''Ann. M. N. H.'' ? Good! Upon the whole! ... Wallace has, I think, put the matter well; and according to his theory, the various domestic races of animals have been fairly developed into ''species''. ... A trump of a fact for friend Wallace to have hit upon!" There can be no doubt of Darwin's regard for Edward Blyth: in the first chapter of ''
On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'')The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by M ...
'' he wrote "Mr. Blyth, whose opinion, from his large and varied stores of knowledge, I should value more than that of almost any one, ..." In 1911, H.M. Vickers considered Blyth's writings as an early understanding of natural selection which was noted in a 1959 paper, where Loren Eiseley claimed that "the leading tenets of Darwin's work – the struggle for existence, variation, natural selection and sexual selection – are all fully expressed in Blyth's paper of 1835". He also cited a number of rare words, similarities of phrasing, and the use of similar examples, which he regarded as evidence of Darwin's debt to Blyth. However, the subsequent discovery of Darwin's notebooks has "permitted the refutation of Eiseley's claims". Eiseley argued that Blyth's influence on Darwin "begins to be discernible in the Darwin Note-book of 1836 with the curious word 'inosculate'. It is a word which has never had a wide circulation, and which is not to be found in Darwin's vocabulary before this time." This was incorrect: an 1832 letter written by Darwin commented that William Sharp Macleay "never imagined such an inosculating creature". The letter preceded Blyth's publication, and indicates that both Darwin and Blyth had independently taken the term from Macleay whose Quinarian system of classification had been popular for a time after its first publication in 1819–1820. In a mystical scheme this grouped separately created genera in "osculating" (kissing) circles. Both
Ernst Mayr Ernst Walter Mayr ( ; ; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, Philosophy of biology, philosopher of biology, and ...
and Cyril Darlington interpret Blyth's view of natural selection as maintaining the type: :"Blyth's theory was clearly one of elimination rather than selection. His principal concern is the maintenance of the perfection of the type. Blyth's thinking is decidedly that of a natural theologian..." :"What was the work of Blyth?... Blyth attempts to show how election and the struggle for existencecan be used to explain, not the change of species (which he was anxious to discredit) but the stability of species in which he ardently believed." In this negative formulation, natural selection only preserves a constant and unchangeable type or essence of created form, by eliminating extreme variations or unfit individuals that deviate too far from this essence. The formulation goes back to the
ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
philosopher
Empedocles Empedocles (; ; , 444–443 BC) was a Ancient Greece, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a native citizen of Akragas, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is known best for originating the Cosmogony, cosmogonic theory of the four cla ...
, and the theologian
William Paley William Paley (July 174325 May 1805) was an English Anglican clergyman, Christian apologetics, Christian apologist, philosopher, and Utilitarianism, utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument ...
set out a variation on this argument in 1802, to refute (in later pages) a claim that there had been a wide range of initial creations, with less viable forms eliminated by nature to leave the modern range of species: :"The hypothesis teaches, that every possible variety of being hath, at one time or other, found its way into existence (by what cause or in what manner is not said), and that those which were badly formed, perished; but how or why those which survived should be cast, as we see that plants and animals are cast, into regular classes, the hypothesis does not explain; or rather the hypothesis is inconsistent with this phænomenon." The way Blyth himself argued about the modification of species can be illustrated by an extract concerning the adaptations of carnivorous mammals: :"However reciprocal...may appear the relations of the preyer and the prey, a little reflection on the observed facts suffices to intimate that the relative adaptations of the former only are special, those of latter being comparatively vague and general; indicating that there having been a superabundance which might serve as nutriment, in the first instance, and which, in many cases, was unattainable by ordinary means, particular species have therefore been so organized (that is to say, modified upon some more or less general ''type'' or plan of structure,) to avail themselves of the supply."
Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...
writes that Eiseley erred in failing to realize that natural selection was a common idea among biologists of the time, as part of the argument for created permanency of species. It was seen as eliminating the unfit, while some other cause created well-fitted species. Darwin introduced the idea that natural selection was ''creative'' in giving direction to a process of evolutionary change in which small hereditary changes accumulate. John Wilkins indicates that Blyth considered that species had "invariable distinctions" establishing their integrity, and so was opposed to
transmutation of species The Transmutation of species and transformism are 18th and early 19th-century ideas about the change of one species into another that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection. The French ''Transformisme'' was a ter ...
as if it occurred, "we should seek in vain for those constant and invariable distinctions which are found to obtain". Darwin held the opposite view, and did not read Blyth until after formulating his own theory. In contrast to Eiseley's claim that Blyth felt that Darwin had plagiarised the idea, Blyth remained a valued correspondent and friend of Darwin's after the idea was published.


Return from India

Blyth returned to London on 9 March 1863 to recover from ill health. He was to get a full year's pay for this sick leave. He however had to borrow money from John Henry Gurney and continued his animal trade. Around 1865, he began to help Thomas C. Jerdon in the writing of the ''Birds of India'' but had a mental breakdown and had to be kept in a private asylum. He was a corresponding member of the Zoological Society and was elected an extraordinary member of the British Ornithological Union, nominated by
Alfred Newton Alfred Newton Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS HFRSE (11 June 18297 June 1907) was an England, English zoologist and ornithologist. Newton was Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge University from 1866 to 1907. Among his numerous public ...
. He later took to drinking and was once held for assaulting a cab driver. He died of heart disease on 27 December 1873 and is buried in a family grave in Highgate Cemetery.


Other works

Although Blyth spent most of his time in the museum in India, he was aware and interested in the study of birds in life. Prior to moving to India, he conducted some experiments to examine if
cuckoo Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae ( ) family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes ( ). The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals, and anis. The coucals and anis are somet ...
eggs (or more generally foreign eggs) were detected and removed by the hosts by placing eggs of one species in the nests of others. In 1835 he wrote that he had experimentally found chaffinches to remove a foreign egg when placed in their clutch. He also suggested the idea of replacing the original clutch with another clutch but with a single foreign egg and suggested based on his own results that either the foreign eggs would be discarded or that the birds would abandon the nest. Blyth also examined the patterns of moult in various bird groups. Blyth edited the section on "Mammalia, Birds, and Reptiles" in the English edition of Cuvier's ''Animal Kingdom'' published in 1840, inserting many observations, corrections, and references of his own. His ''Catalogue of the mammals and birds of Burma'' was published posthumously in 1875.Blyth, Edward (1810–1873), zoologist
by Christine Brandon-Jones in
Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
online (accessed 21 July 2008)
Working in the scientific field of
herpetology Herpetology (from Ancient Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (Gymnophiona)) and reptiles (in ...
, from 1853 through 1863, he described over three dozen new species of
reptiles Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocepha ...
and several new species of
amphibians Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...
.


Eponymous taxa

Avian species bearing his name include Blyth's hornbill, Blyth's leaf warbler, Blyth's hawk-eagle, Blyth's olive bulbul, Blyth's parakeet, Blyth's frogmouth, Blyth's reed warbler, Blyth's rosefinch, Blyth's shrike-babbler, Blyth's tragopan, Blyth's pipit, and Blyth's kingfisher. Reptilian species and a genus bearing his name include '' Blythia reticulata'', ''
Eumeces blythianus ''Eumeces blythianus'', commonly known as Blyth's skink, is a species of lizard in the family Scincidae. The species is native to South Asia. Etymology The specific name, ''blythianus'', is in honor of English zoologist Edward Blyth (1810 ...
'', and '' Rhinophis blythii''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Blyth", p. 28).


References


External links

*
Archives of Charles Darwin and his correspondence with BlythCatalogue of mammal and birds of Burma (1875)

Catalogue of birds in the museum Asiatic Society (1849)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blyth, Edward English naturalists English zoologists 1810 births 1873 deaths Burials at Highgate Cemetery English ornithologists Proto-evolutionary biologists Scientists from London 19th-century British zoologists