110 
THE INDIAN MUSEUM: 1814—1914. 
and other lower types. He was perhaps most interested in the 
birds, but also wrote many valuable papers on the mammals 
and several on the reptiles and fish. Especially in his more 
comprehensive memoirs he was beset by a difficulty that 
always meets those who have to do pioneer work on biology 
in a country as yet little known. No sooner had he comple¬ 
ted a catalogue or a monograph than fresh information ac¬ 
cumulated which might either confirm or disprove the views 
just put forth. In several instances Blyth attempted to meet 
this difficulty by adding appendix after appendix. The result 
was often to obscure rather than to elucidate. His keen in¬ 
sight, however, and the importance he attached to the exam¬ 
ination of long series of specimens gave his first expressed 
views a permanent value that those of few systematic zoolo¬ 
gists except himself and Charles Darwin have possessed. 
In all his systematic papers he was careful to add notes on 
habits and distribution, and it is remarkable how many of his 
species that were ignored or passed into synonymy by subse¬ 
quent zoologists are now being revived. 
From the point of view of the Indian Museum the extra¬ 
ordinary energy—which must have been combined with a 
very considerable amount of tact—that he displayed in per¬ 
suading correspondents and friends to send specimens to Cal¬ 
cutta is particularly noteworthy. The greater part, or at any 
rate a very large part, of his collections still exist in the 
Indian Museum. Many of the specimens are still in better 
condition than those obtained at a later date, perhaps because 
in the early days of Indian zoology collectors had more time 
to spare for the preparation of their material. 
The chief loss that has befallen the collections he made is 
that of all the rays he described. Many of the specimens of 
this group of fishes that he examined perished long ago, but 
there is reason to think that some remained intact as late as 
1908, and were then destroyed in a hasty clearing out of the 
public gallery of fishes that took place owing to what is now 
recognized to have been an ill-judged exercise of official influ¬ 
ence. The only compensation for their loss is that it made 
the occurrence of anything of the kind practically impossible 
for the future 
