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Edward Blyth.
Edward Blyth.

Edward Blyth (December 23, 1810 - December 27, 1873) was an English zoologist and chemist. Events 962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city Year 1810 ( MDCCCX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Events 537 - The Hagia Sophia is completed 1512 - The Spanish Crown issues the Laws of Burgos, governing the Year 1873 ( MDCCCLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland He is known as one of the founders of Indian zoology. Zoology (from Greek ζῷον, zoon, "animal" + λόγος, " Logos " "knowledge" is the branch of

Blyth was born in London in 1810. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. In 1841 he travelled to India to become the curator of the museum of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country The Asiatic Society was founded by Sir William Jones ( 1746 - 1794) on January 15, 1784 in a meeting presided over by Sir Robert 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. Allan Octavian Hume ( June 6, 1829 - July 31, 1912) son of Joseph Hume was a Civil servant in British governed India Colonel Samuel Richard Tickell ( August 19, 1811 - April 20, 1875) was a British army officer artist and ornithologist in India Robert Swinhoe ( September 1, 1836 - October 28, 1877) was an English naturalist. He remained as curator until 1862, when ill-health forced his return to England. His The Natural History of the Cranes was published in 1881.

Species bearing his name include Blyth's Hawk-eagle, Blyth's Reed Warbler, Southern Blyth's Leaf-Warbler and Blyth's Pipit. The Blyth's Hawk Eagle, Nisaetus alboniger (earlier treated as Spizaetus) is a Bird of prey. The Blyth's Reed Warbler, Acrocephalus dumetorum, is an Old World warbler in the genus Acrocephalus. UserPolbot. -->The Southern Blyth's Leaf-Warbler ( Phylloscopus reguloides) is a species of Old World warbler The Blyth's Pipit, Anthus godlewskii, is a medium-sized Passerine Bird which breeds in Mongolia and neighbouring areas

Contents

Early life and work

Blyth was the son of a clothier and initially worked as a pharmacist but quit in 1837 to seek a living as an author and editor. He was offered the position of curator at the museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1841. The Asiatic Society was founded by Sir William Jones ( 1746 - 1794) on January 15, 1784 in a meeting presided over by Sir Robert 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 that was unchanged for twenty years and a house allowance of 4 pounds per month. He got married in 1854 and tried to supplement his income by writing under a pseudonym to the Indian Sporting Review as well as trading live animals between India and Britain catering to wealthy collectors both in Britain and India. In this venture he sought the collaboration of various eminent people including Charles Darwin and John Gould, both of whom declined these offers. Charles Robert Darwin (February 12 1809 &ndash April 19 1882 was an English naturalist, who realised and demonstrated that all Species of life John Gould ( 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English Ornithologist. [1]

Although a curator of a museum with multiple areas of work, he contributed largely to ornithology, often forsaking other areas of work. His employers were unhappy in 1847 at his failure to produce a catalogue of the museum. There were also factions in the Asiatic Society that were against Blyth and 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. Sir Richard Owen KCB ( Lancaster, July 20 1804 &ndash December 18 1892) was an English Biologist . . I could astonish you by various statements of what I have to put up with but forbear.

—quoted in Brandon-Jones, 1997

His work on ornithology led him to be recognized as the father of Indian ornithology a title which was later transferred to Allan Octavian Hume. Allan Octavian Hume ( June 6, 1829 - July 31, 1912) son of Joseph Hume was a Civil servant in British governed India [2]

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. " Seated, as the head of the Asiatic Society's Museum, he, by intercourse and through correspondents, not only formed a large collection for the Society, but also enriched the pages of the Society's Journal with the results of his study, and thus did more for the extension of the study of the Avifauna of India than all previous writers. There can be no work on Indian Ornithology without reference to his voluminous contributions. . . .

—James Murray

Blyth's view of natural selection

Edward Blyth wrote three articles on variation, discussing the effects of artificial selection and describing the process of natural selection as restoring organisms in the wild to their archetype (rather than forming new species). Artificial selection is the intentional breeding for certain traits or combinations of traits over others and is synonymous with " Selective breeding " Natural selection is the process by which favorable Heritable traits become more common in successive Generations of a Population of An archetype ( pronounced: /ˈɑːkɪtaɪp/ (Brit or /ˈɑrkɪtaɪp/ (Amer In Biology, a species is one of the basic units of Biological classification and a Taxonomic rank. These articles were published in The Magazine of Natural History between 1835 and 1837. [3][4] He 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:

"What think you of Wallace’s paper in the Ann. Alfred Russel Wallace OM, FRS (8 January 1823 &ndash 7 November 1913 was an British naturalist, Explorer, Geographer N. Hist. ? 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!" [5]

There can be no doubt of Darwin's regard for Edward Blyth: in the first chapter of The Origin of Species he writes ". Charles Darwin 's On the Origin of Species (published 24 November 1859) is a seminal work in Scientific literature and arguably the . . Mr Blyth, whose opinion, from his large and varied stores of knowledge, I should value more than that of almost any one. . . " [6]

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". Loren Corey Eiseley ( September 3, 1907 – July 9, 1977) was a highly respected Anthropologist, science writer Ecologist [7][8] He also cites a number of rare words, similarities of phrasing, and the use of similar examples, which he regards as evidence of Darwin's debt to Blyth. However, the subsequent discovery of Darwin's notebooks has "permitted the refutation of Eiseley's claims. " [9] Both Mayr and Darlington interpret Blyth's view of natural selection as maintaining the type:

"Blyth's theory was clearly one of elimination rather than selection. Ernst Walter Mayr ( July 5, 1904, Kempten, Germany &ndash February 3, 2005, Bedford Massachusetts U Cyril Dean Darlington ( 19 December 1903 - 26 March 1981) was an English Biologist, His principal concern is the maintainance of the perfection of the type. Blyth's thinking is decidedly that of a natural theologian. . . " (Mayr, op cit)
"What was the work of Blyth?. . . Blyth attempts to show how [selection and the struggle for existence] can 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. " [10]

Natural selection, in this negative formulation, acts only to preserve the type, constant and inviolate, by eliminating extreme variants and unfit individuals who threatened to degrade the essence of created form. The theologian William Paley had earlier presented this argument, doing so to refute (in later pages) a claim that modern species preserve the good designs winnowed from a much broader range of initial creations after natural selection had eliminated the less viable forms: "The hypothesis teaches, that every possible variety of being hath, at one time or other, found its way into existence (by what cause of in what manner is not said), and that those which were badly formed, perished". William Paley (July 1743 &ndash 25 May 1805) was a British Christian apologist, Philosopher, and utilitarian.

The way in which 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. " [11]

Like the other proto-evolutionary biologists, Blyth grasped part of the story, but rejected the critical part, the production of new species.

Return from India

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. John Henry Gurney ( July 4, 1819 - April 20, 1890) was an English Banker and amateur Ornithologist. 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. Thomas Caverhill Jerdon (1811 - 1872 was a British Physician, Zoologist and Botanist. Mental breakdown (also known as nervous breakdown or snapping) is a non-medical term used to describe a sudden acute attack of Mental illness such as 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 FRS ( Geneva, June 11, 1829 &ndash Cambridge, June 7, 1907) was an English zoologist He later took to drinking and was convicted for assaulting a cab driver. He died of heart disease in December 1873. [1]

Other works

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.

References

  1. ^ a b Brandon-Jones, Christine 1997. Edward Blyth, Charles Darwin, and the animal trade in Nineteenth-Century India and Britain. Journal of the History of Biology 30:145-178
  2. ^ Murray, James A. 1888. The avifauna of British India and its dependencies. Truebner. Volume 1
  3. ^ Blyth, E. , The Magazine of Natural History Volumes 8, 9 and 10, 1835–1837.
  4. ^ An Attempt to Classify the "Varieties" of Animals, with Observations on the Marked Seasonal and Other Changes Which Naturally Take Place in Various British Species, and Which Do Not Constitute Varieties" by Edward Blyth (1835) Magazine of Natural History Volume 8 pages 40-53.
  5. ^ Shermer, Michael. 2002 In Darwin’s shadow : the life and science of Alfred Russel Wallace. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-514830-4
  6. ^ Darwin, Charles, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Third Edition, 1861
  7. ^ Eiseley, L. 1979. Darwin and the Mysterious Mr X. Dutton, New York. p55
  8. ^ Eiseley L. 1959. Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and the theory of natural selection. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 103:94–114.
  9. ^ Mayr E. 1984. The growth of biological thought. Harvard. p489
  10. ^ Darlington C. D. 1959. Darwin's place in history. Blackwell, Oxford. p34
  11. ^ Blyth, E. 1840. Editorial footnote in Cuvier's Animal Kingdom Orr, London. p67

External links

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