Wallace, Darwin, and Edward Blyth : Further Notes on the Development of Evolution Theory

BARBARA G. BEDDALL 2502 Bronson Road Fairfield, Connecticut

You say that you have been somewhat surprised at no notice having been taken of your paper in the Annals. I cannot say that I am, for so very few naturalists care for anything beyond the mere description of species. But you must not suppose that your paper has not been attended to: two very good men, Sir C. Lyell, and Mr. E. Blyth at Calcutta, specially called my attention to it. Charles Darwin to Alfred Russel Wallace, Down, December 22,18571

Alfred Russel Wallace’s paper, “On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species,” was published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History in September 1855, near the beginning of his eight-year stay in the Malay Archipelago. His object in presenting his views was, as he wrote, to submit them “to the test of other minds, and to be made aware of all the facts supposed to be inconsistent with them.” His ‘law”-deduced from a series of propositions re- lating to the geographical and geological distribution of or- ganisms-read: “Every species has come into existence coinci- dent both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species.” 2 But, although Wallace himself sensed the true importance of his paper, it appeared to arouse little interest, and he received none of the constructive criticism for which he had hoped. In the summer of 1857 a congratulatory letter finally arrived from his old friend and erstwhile companion, Henry

1. Francis Darwin, ed., The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Includ- ing an Autobiographical Chapter (London: Murray, 1888), II, 108. 2. Alfred Russel Wallace, “On the Law Which Has Regulated the Intro- duction of New Species,” Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. [Z], 16 (1855), 190, 186. Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 5, no. 1 (Spring 1972), pp. 153-158.

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Walter Bates, then exploring on the Upper Amazon. Interest otherwise was minimal, as Wallace apparently complained to Charles Darwin in his second letter to him, written in Sep- tember 1857. And Darwin’s restrained reply, that “two very good men, Sir C. LyeII, and Mr. E. Blyth at Calcutta, specially called my attention to it,” hardly conveys the impact it had on these men.3 With the recent publication of Sir Charles LyelPs Scientific Journals on the Species Question, the importance of Wallace’s paper can be more fully assessed. Lye11 read it on 26 Novem- ber 1855, and on 28 November he opened the first of his several notebooks on the species question. The following April he visited Darwin at Down and on the 16th discussed with him the meaning of the paper. Wallace’s law, as he noted at the time, “seems explained by the Natural Selection Theory,” this apparently being the occasion on which Darwin first explained his theory to Lyell. LyeIl’s response was to urge Darwin to publish. Darwin felt it impossible to do justice to his ideas with a brief statement and so embarked on the writing of a book, already more than half-hnished when he received Wal- lace’s second letter in December 1857.4 Edward Blyth, like Wallace, was far removed from this scene of action, having been since 1841 the curator of the museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta. But he had become a valued correspondent of Darwin’s and indeed may himself have unknowingly i.nfIuenced Darwin’s original fomula- tion of the theory of natural selection, as Eiseley has suggested. BIyth was another of those talented amateurs in which Eng- land seemed to abound, self-taught, dedicated, and perceptive.6 Blyth must have read Wallace’s paper within weeks of writing his letter to Darwin on 8 December 1855, and he de- voted four of the letter’s eight pages to it. He was obviously struck by its evolutionary implications, remarking on the pos-

3. James Mar&ant, Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences (New York: Harper, 1916), pp. 52-53; and see n. 1 above. 4. Leonard G. Wilson, ed., Sir Charles LyeU’s Scienti@ Journak on the Species Question (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. xli, xliii, xlv-xlix, 52-55, 65-66, 80; H. Lewis McKinney, “Alfred RusseI Wallace and the Discovery of Natural Selection,” J. Hid. Med. Allied Sci., 21 (1966), 350. See also Barbara G. Beddall, “Wallace, Darwin, and the Theory of Natural Selection: A Study in the Development of Ideas and Attitudes,” J. Hi& Biol., I (1968), 299-291,319-320. 5. George Thomas Bettany, “Edward Blyth,” Dictionary of National Biography (London: Oxford University Press, reprinted 1949-1950), II, 738-739; Loren C. Eiseley, “Charles Darwin, Edward Blytb, and the Theory of Natural Selection,” PTOC. Am. Phil. Sot., 103 (1959), 94-158.

154 Wallace, Darwin, and Edward Blyth sible ramifications of the giraffe and elk from the “Deer type” (an example of Wallace’s “common antitype”) and on various examples of geographical distributions by which Wallace might support his contentions. He was clearly unaware of Darwin’s theories, however, inquiring rather if the paper had “at all unsettled your ideas regarding the persistence of species.” 6 The following is a transcription of the first four pages of Blyth’s letter, with explanatory notes (paragraphing has been added) :

Calcutta, Dec. 8/55 My Dear Sir, This afternoon I have had the pleasure of receiving yours of 18th Oct., and as the mail closes this evening, I hasten to reply at once. I have not written to you lately, from sheer want of time, but have noted down a few matters to com- ment upon when I found an opportunity. What think you of Wallace’s paper in the Ann. N. Hid.7 Good! Upon the whole! But how about such forms as the Giraffe, which has typicaE representatives in the Siwalik tertiary deposits?7 Or the true Elk (= Moose)? Can we suppose a lost series of gradations connecting these genera with the Deer type, & ramifying off to them paulatim [gradually]? 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. I think that I before said that the Peacock had not varied for some centuries of domestication in Europe further than as regards albinism, complete or partial; but I overlooked the interesting “sport” of colouring exhibited by the Ja- panned (not ‘Japan) variety which seems to have originated more than once ,-vide especially Sir R. Heron, in the Proc. Zool. Soc.8 A trump of a fact for friend Wallace to have

6. Blyth’s letter is among the Da.rwin papers in the University Library, Cambridge. It is no. 8 of 15 letters received by Darwin from Blyth in Calcutta that are included in vol. 98 as listed in the Handlist of Dar-ruin Papers at the University Library, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press, 1960), p. 27, and it is published here with the kind permission of the University Library. 7. Paleontologically rich formation in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains. [B. G. B.] 8. Charles Darwin noted in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, 2nd ed., rev. (New York: D. Appleton, 1892), I, 305307: “There is one strange fact with respect to the peacock, namely, the oc- casional appearance in England of the “japanned” or ‘black-shouldered”

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hit upon! The Pave muticus, I may remark, is much more brilliantly coloured in the Malay countries than it is in the Burmese; & the late Ld Derby suspected a distinctness of species.9 Someday I may have an opportunity of seeing further to this matter. In like manner the Malayan and Burmese Jungle fowl is super-coloured than that of India, and moreover it seems to have always a coarser leg, tending to become yellow, the cheek-lappets being also red like the comb, & the bird being so much more easily domesticable, that I cannot help sus- pecting that we owe its domestication to the regions in- habited by this trams-India wild variety.10 You know I have little faith in the aboriginal wildness of the white Chillingham cattle, arguing here from colour alone! Well you remember the innate wildness of the calves, so often insisted upon;11 wherefore I call your particular attention to a paper by Buchanan Hamilton, published in Montgomery Martin’s compilation of his writings, Vol. 1, 504, only for ‘Bos taurus,” read B. indicus. See the same author’s Journey through Mysore, etc., vol. 2, for some kind. . . . On the whole the evidence seems to me, as it did to Sir R. Heron, to be decisive in favour of the . . . breed being a variation, induced by some unknown cause.” This form is now recognized as one of the two or three mutations that have developed in the blue peafowl, Pave cristatus; see Jean Delacour in A. Landsborough Thomson, ed., A New Dictionary of Birds (London: Thomas Nelson, 1964), p. 628. [B. G. B.] 9. Jean Delacour (Birds of MuZuysia, New York: Macmillan, 1947, p. 72) recognizes a duller race of the green peafowl, Pave muticus, in Burma (speciferus), although James L. Peters (Check-List of Birds of the World, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, reprinted 1963, II, 133) does not. Lord Derby was Edward Smith Stanley, thirteenth Earl of Derby (1775-1851), a well-known zoologist who kept an extensive private menagerie. [B. G. B.] 10. Darwin (V&&ion of Animals and Plants, I, 247-249,258) remarked that “Mr. Blyth informs me that the specimens . , . from the Malay peninsula and Java are brighter coloured than the Indian birds. . . It is a significant fact, that almost all the naturalists in India, namely Sir W. Elliot . . . and Mr. Blyth, who are familiar with G. bankiva IGaZlus gallus bunkiva], believe that it is the parent of most or all our domestic breeds . . . it may be concluded that not only the Game-breed but that all our breeds are probably descendants of the Malayan or Indian variety of G. bunkiva.” [B. G. B.] 11. The semi-wild English white cattle, Bos taurus, is similar to the aurochs, B. primigenius, ancestor of modern humpless cattle, which has been extinct since 1627. Darwin (Variation of Animals and Plants, I, 84, 87) noted that “Bos primigenius existed as a wild animal in Caesar’s time, and is now semi-wild, though much degenerated in size, in the park of Chillingham . . . so ancient that it is referred to in a record of the year 1220,” where non-white animals were apparently destroyed. [B. G. B-1

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notices of the races of humped cattle, with figures.12 I have not travelled about enough to be any authority on this sub- ject: but have been told that those in Ceylon are small, compact, & dark-coloured animals; ditto in Burma; whereas the prevalent colour here is white. Bombay people might tell you more about the Indian races of cattle, of which the finest come from Cutch, Guzerat, & the neighbouring provinces. May also learn what humped cattle there are in S. China (if any) ; also about those in Madagascar (which supply the Mauritius & Bourbon [Rbunion] with beef) ; and about the African races, of which the Galla cattle & those of Bornu are the most remarkable.13 I have seen oxen in Madras, with enormous horns, & altogether very similar to the Galla race. The group of Indian monkeys affined to the Bengal Entel- ZUS, & the group of Indian & Malayan gigantic squirrels, so diversified in colour, & yet each race so remarkably true to its colouring, afford capital data for Mr. Wallace to descant upon in reference to his views.14 Again, among land mollusks, the Bulimus perverbus. A lot of this species just brought from Burma are remarkable for having a blackish-red mantle, unlike any I have seen before. The many varieties of this beautiful shell seem each to be local, certainly to a great extent, & have perhaps as good claim to be regarded as species as the gigantic squirrels have ,-unlike our familiar English Helix [Cepaea] ne- moralis. Mr. Wallace could also well support his views by reference to the Helices & Bulimi collected in the Philip- pines by Cunissy,--& also to the varieties of the Indian Melania. What do you think of the paper in question? Has it at all unsettled your ideas regarding the persistence of species, -not perhaps so much from novelty of argument, as by the lucid collation of facts & phenomena. On the other hand, consider over the nicer distinctions among the very

12. B. indicus is the humped zebu, or Brahman, the domestic cattle of India. Francis Buchanan Hamilton’s A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar was published in England in 1807. His report on his travels through Bengal appeared in Robert Mont- gomery Martin’s History of the Antiquities of Eastern India, published in three volumes in 1838. [B. G. B.] 13. Galla and Bornu are in present-day Ethiopia and Nigeria, re- spectively. [B. G. B.] 14. EnteZZus is Presbytis entellus, the hanuman or entellus monkey, sacred to the Hindus. There are four species of giant squirrels, Rutufa, in southern and southeast Asia. [B. G. B.]

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numerous European Helices, & how true each remains to its structural characters; & this over vast geographical areas! How is it that we do not oftener meet with such a fact as that recorded of the Japanned Peafowl? . . . If Blyth’s letter went off as expected, Darwin could have received it as early as late February 1856. But whether he received it before or after the meeting with Lyell in April, he knew from it that more than one other person had grasped the significance of Wallace’s paper.

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