Alfred Edwin Eaton (1844–1929) was amongst numerous Victorian naturalists whose exotic collections disseminated to the natural history museums of Britain laid the groundwork for our understanding of biodiversity. What sets him apart from his contemporaries was his first-hand knowledge of organisms at the polar extremes. This paper describes Eaton’s contributions to polar biology, especially in the field of entomology, from two high-latitude expeditions: the 1873 Benjamin Leigh Smith Expedition to Svalbard in the European Arctic and the 1874 British Transit of Venus Expedition to Kerguelen Island in the southern Indian Ocean. His observations of flightless polar and subpolar insects, in particular, lent support to the work of Challenger naturalist Henry Moseley and botanist Joseph Hooker on species dispersal in the Southern Ocean and on adaptations that arise in response to the unique selection pressures in harsh, isolated conditions.

阿尔弗雷德·埃德温·伊顿（Alfred Edwin Eaton，1844-1929 年）是众多维多利亚时代博物学家中的一员，他们的奇特藏品传播到英国的自然历史博物馆，为我们理解生物多样性奠定了基础。他与同时代人的不同之处在于他对极地生物的第一手知识。这篇论文通过两次高纬度探险描述了伊顿对极地生物学，尤其是昆虫学领域的贡献：1873 年本杰明·利·史密斯远征欧洲北极地区的斯瓦尔巴群岛和 1874 年英国金星凌日远征南印度凯尔盖朗岛海洋。他对不会飞的极地和亚极地昆虫的观察尤其支持了 Challenger的工作 博物学家 Henry Moseley 和植物学家 Joseph Hooker 探讨了南大洋的物种传播以及在严酷、孤立的条件下应对独特的选择压力而产生的适应性。