Edward Blyth (23 December 1810 – 27 December 1873) was an English zoologist and pharmacist. He was one of the founders of zoology in India.
Blyth was born in London in 1810. In 1841 he travelled to India to become the curator of the museum of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. 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 Hume, Tickell, Swinhoe and others. He remained as curator until 1862, when ill-health forced his return to England. His The natural history of the Cranes was published posthumously in 1881.[1]
Species bearing his name include Blyth's Hawk-eagle, Blyth's Reed Warbler, Southern Blyth's Leaf-Warbler and Blyth's Pipit.
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Blyth was the son of a clothier. He started working as a pharmacist, but quit in 1837 to try his luck as an author and editor. He was offered the position of curator at the museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1841. He was so poor that he needed an advance of £100 (pounds) to make the trip to Calcutta. 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 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 and John Gould, both of whom declined these offers.[2]
Although a curator of a museum with many responsibilities, he contributed mainly to ornithology, often forsaking other areas of work. In 1847, his employers were unhappy at his failure to produce a catalogue of the museum. Some Asiatic Society factions opposed Blyth. He complained to Richard Owen in 1848:
They intrigue in every way to get rid of me; accuse me of being an Ornithologist, and that the society did not want an ornithologist...I could astonish you by various statements of what I have to put up with but forbear.—quoted in Brandon-Jones, 1997
He also found George Robert Gray, curator 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.[3]
His work on ornithology led him to be recognized as the father of Indian ornithology a title later transferred to Allan Octavian Hume.[4]
Mr. Blyth, who is rightly called the Father of Indian Ornithology, was by far the most important contributor to our knowledge of the Birds of India. As the head of the Asiatic Society's Museum, by intercourse and correspondence, formed a large collection for the Society, and enriched the pages of the Society's Journal with the results of his study. Thus he did more for the study of the birds of India than all previous writers. There can be no work on Indian Ornithology without reference to his voluminous contributions. ...—James Murray
Edward Blyth wrote three articles on variation, discussing the effects of artificial selection and describing the process in nature (later called natural selection) as restoring organisms in the wild to their archetype (rather than forming new species). However, he never actually used the term "natural selection".[5] These articles were published in The Magazine of Natural History between 1835 and 1837.[6][7]
In February 1855 Charles Darwin, 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.[8] Blyth was among the first to recognise the significance of Wallace'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 on December 8, 1855:
There can be no doubt of Darwin's regard for Edward Blyth: in the first chapter of On the Origin of Species he wrote "Mr. Blyth, whose opinion, from his large and varied stores of knowledge, I should value more than that of almost any one, ..."[11]
In a 1959 paper, 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".[12][13] 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".[14] Both Mayr and Darlington interpret Blyth's view of natural selection as maintaining the type:
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 philosopher Empedocles, and the theologian William Paley 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:[16][17]
The way Blyth himself argued about the modification of species can be illustrated by an extract concerning the adaptations of carnivorous mammals:
Stephen Jay Gould 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.[16] John Wilkins indicates that Blyth considered that species had "invariable distinctions" establishing their integrity, and so was opposed to transmutation of species 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 of Darwin's after the idea was published, and remained a strong friend of Darwin.[17]
Blyth returned to London on March 9, 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. He later took to drinking and was convicted for assaulting a cab driver. He died of heart disease in December 1873.[2]
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.[2][20]