Introduction. 



IX 



Several contributions from Blyth on his special subject will be found in 

 the pages of the different sporting Journals which have appeared in Calcutta. 

 He was on the regular staff of the 'Indian Field.' In the ' India Sporting 

 Beview' he published a sketch of 'The Osteology of the Elephant/ and a 

 series of papers on 'The Inline Animals of India/ For the 'Calcutta 

 Beview' he wrote an article on the 'Birds of India/ It gives the re- 

 sults of his latest experience on the subject of the communication made in 

 1842 to the Zoological Society, which has been noticed above, and shows 

 that of 353 species of birds admitted by Yarrell into the English avifauna, 

 no less than 140 are found in India. 



In 1854 Blyth was married to Mrs. Hodges, a young widow whom he 

 had known as Miss Sutton, and who had lately come out to join some rela- 

 tives in India. This step on his part necessarily aggravated the embarrass- 

 ments entailed on him by his inadequate income, and on completing his four- 

 teenth year of service in 1855, he memorialized the Court of Directors for an 

 increased salary and for a pension "after a certain number of years' service." 

 In the second paragraph of his memorial he observes, "that however 

 desirous the Asiatic Society might be of augmenting your memorialist's 

 personal allowances, the ever-increasing demands on its income, consequent 

 on the extension of its collections among other causes, altogether disables it 

 from so doing." On this memorial being submitted to the meeting* of May, 

 1856, it was agreed to forward the document to Government, "with the 

 expression of the high sense entertained by the Society of the value of 

 Mr. Blyth's labours in the Department of Natural History, and of its 

 hope that the memorial may be favourably considered by the Honourable 

 Court." 



The extract just given will show, in Blyth's own words, that he had no 

 complaints to make of our Society's treatment of him. Mr. A. Hume, who 

 seems to have first joined our Society in 1870, has gone somewhat out of his 

 way in his 'Rough Notes 'f to do justice to Blyth's merits as Curator, at 

 the expense of older members. The language used is in Mr. Hume's charac- 

 teristic style, and is as offensive as the charge brought against the Society 

 is unjust. The same charge is implied in the use of the words "neglect 

 and harshness" in the "In Memoriam " with which vol. ii. of ' Stray 

 Feathers' opens, and which, with this exception, describes with much 

 truth and feeling the life-long struggle in India, as at home, which Blyth's 



* J. B. A. S. xxv. 237. 



f See note to ' My Scrap Book or Rough Notes on Indian Oology and Ornithology, ' 

 No. l,p. 181. 



