108 
THE INDIAN MUSEUM: 1814—19L4. 
keen interest in natural history, however, interfered greatly 
with his business, which was not successful. In his introduc¬ 
tion to an edition of White’s “Selborne” he alludes to the 
anxieties which then surrounded him, but adds, his mind 
cleaves to his favourite pursuit in defiance of any obstacles 
and interruptions, and eagerly avails itself of every occasion 
to contribute a mite to the stock of general information.” 
From 1833 until he left for India in 1841, Blyth was a 
contributor to the Magazine of Natural History; he also 
wrote for the Field Naturalist, and was associated with 
Mudie, Johnston and Westwood in an illustrated translation 
of Cuvier published in 1840. The Proceedings of the Zoo¬ 
logical Society of London from 1837 to 1840 contain papers 
by him, of which the most important is a monograph of the 
genus Ovis. 
In 1841 Blyth was appointed by Prof. H. H. Wilson, 
Honorary Agent to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in London, 
as curator of the Society’s Museum. He expressed, however, 
great diffidence in taking charge of the mineral department, 
which he handed over to Mr. Piddington in the following 
year. 
Month by month from October 1841, Blyth submitted 
a report to the Society at the general meetings and in each of 
the monthly issues of that year he published a paper. The 
first of these papers was :— 
“ A General Review of the species of True Stag, or Ela- 
phoid form of Cervus, comprising those more immediately 
related to the Red Stag of Europe.” 
For over twenty years Blyth continued to be in charge 
of the Asiatic Society’s zoological collections, and the work 
that he did in this period may be said to have laid the foun¬ 
dation of zoological study in India on a firm basis. He was 
at one time accused of neglecting the insects and molluscs in 
the collection in favour of the birds and mammals, but his 
work on the former groups was of so comprehensive a nature 
that the wonder is that he was able to carry it through at all. 
He availed himself of every opportunity that offered 
itself in a legitimate manner for an escape from his museum 
studies by a shorter or longer periods of field work, but the 
