Alfred Eaton: a Victorian naturalist at the ends of the world

C. Leah Devlin

doi:10.33265/polar.v41.8420

C. Leah Devlin Division of Science and Engineering, Penn State University, Abington College, Abington, PA, USA

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33265/polar.v41.8420

Keywords: Svalbard, Kerguelen Island, entomology, 1873 Benjamin Leigh Smith Expedition, 1874 Transit of Venus Expedition, aptery

Abstract

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.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Anonymous 1885. Obituary of Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys. Athenaeum 2988, 154.

Anonymous 1930. Obituary of Alfred E. Eaton. Entomological News 41, 63.

Anonymous 2020. Eaton, Rev Alfred Edwin. A biographical database of Southern African Science. Accessed on the internet at http://www.s2a3.org.za/bio/Biograph_final.php?serial=830 on 3 February 2021.

Capelotti P.J. 2013. Shipwreck at Cape Flora: the expeditions of Benjamin Leigh Smith England’s forgotten Arctic explorer. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.

Capelotti P.J. (ed.) 2021. The coldest coast: the 1873 Leigh Smith expedition to Spitsbergen in the diary and photographs of Herbert C. Chermside. Cham, Switzerland: Springer’s Historical Geography and Geosciences.

Corbet C. 1875. ‘Venus’ at the Isle of Desolation. My private journal during the ‘Transit of Venus’ Expedition in 1874. Southampton: Alfred Randle.

Corbet C. & Coke E. 1881. Transit of Venus, 1874. Part IV. Expedition to Kerguelen Land (continued). Section 2. Observations at supply bay, Royal Sound. In G. Airy (ed.): Account of observations of the Transit of Venus, 1874, December 8, made under the authority of the British government: and of the reduction of the observations. Pp. 449–464. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

Darwin C. 1855. 7 March 1855 letter to Joseph Hooker. Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter no. 1643. Accessed on the internet at https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-1643.xml on 2 March 2021.

Darwin C. 1859 (reissued 2003). On the origin of species. New York: New American Library.

Devlin C.L. 2021. Alfred Eaton and the biological collections from Leigh Smith’s 1873 Expedition. In P. Capelotti (ed.): The coldest coast: the 1873 Leigh Smith expedition to Spitzbergen in the diaries and photographs of Herbert Chermside. Pp. 45–52. Cham, Switzerland: Springer’s Historical Geography and Geosciences.

Dickie G. 1879. Marine algæ (exclusive of Diatomaceæ). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 168, 53–64, doi: 10.1098/rstl.1879.0008.

Eaton A.E. 1859–1864. Notebook J 27 1859–1864. London: Royal Entomological Society.

Eaton A.E. 1873. Notes on the fauna of Spitsbergen. The Zoologist 8, 3762–3771.

Eaton A.E. 1874. Notes on the fauna of Spitsbergen. The Zoologist 9, 3805–3822.

Eaton A.E. 1875a. First report of the naturalist attached to the Transit-of-Venus expedition to Kerguelen’s Island, December 1874. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 23, 351–356.

Eaton A.E. 1875b. Breves Dipterarum uniusque Lepidopterarum insulae Kerguelensi indigenarum diagnoses. Entomologists Monthly Magazine 12, 58–61.

Eaton A.E. 1876a. A list of plants collected in Spitzbergen in the summer of 1873, with their locations. Journal of Botany: British and Foreign 14, 41–44.

Eaton A.E. 1876b. Letter from A.E. Eaton to J.D. Hooker, 17 November 1876. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker Collection. Mss 2153. Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries.

Eaton A.E. 1879a. The collections from Kerguelen Island. Introductory notes. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 168, 1–8.

Eaton A.E. 1879b. Lepidoptera. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 168, 235–237.

Eaton A.E. 1879c. Neuroptera. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 168, 248.

Forbes E. 1844. Report on the mollusca and radiata of the Aegean Sea. In: Report of the Thirteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Pp. 130–193. London: John Murray Publisher.

Frost M. 2005. Some transit tales from history. Journal of the British Astronomical Society 115, 132–137.

Godley E. 1970. Botany of the southern zone: exploration, 1847–1891. Tuatara 18(2), 49–93.

Goodridge S. 1881. Transit of Venus, 1874. Part IV. Expedition to Kerguelen Land (continued). Section 4. Observations at Thumb Peak. In G. Airy (ed.): Account of observations of the Transit of Venus, 1874, December 8, made under the authority of the British government: and of the reduction of the observations. Pp. 473–479. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

Greene J. 1863. The insect-hunter’s companion: being instructions for collecting and preserving butterflies and moths and comprising an essay on pupa digging. London: John van Voorst.

Günther A. 1912. The history of the collections contained in the natural history departments of the British Museum. Vol. II. Appendix. General history of the Department of Zoology from 1856 to 1895. London: British Museum.

Hooker J. 1879. Observations on the botany of Kerguelen Island. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 168, 9–16.

Hudon D. 2004. A (not so) brief history of the Transits of Venus. The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 99, 6–20.

Jeffreys J.G. 1876. List of mollusca collected by the Rev. A.E. Eaton at Spitsbergen during the third voyage of B. Leigh Smith, Eq. Stel. Pol., in the Greenland Sea. The Annals and Magazine of Natural History 18, 499–500.

Leihy R. & Chown S. 2020. Wind plays a major but not exclusive role in the prevalence of insect flight loss on remote islands. Proceeding of the Royal Society B 287, article no. 20202121, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2020.2121.

Marshall T. 1877. Descriptions of hymenoptera from Spitzbergen, collected by the Rev. A.E. Eaton. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 13, 241–242.

Miers E. 1877. List of the species of crustacea collected by the Rev. A.E. Eaton at Spitzbergen in the summer of 1873, with their localities and notes. The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Zoology, Botany and Geology 19, 131–140.

Moseley H. 1892. Notes by a Naturalist. An account of observations made during the voyage of the H. M. S. “Challenger” round the world in the years 1872–1876 under the command of Capt. Sir G. S. Nares, R.N., K.C.B., F.R.S. and Capt. F.T. Thomson, R.N. London: John Murray Publisher.

Nordahl M. 2017. Arctic moth turns up after 140 years. Science Nordic. Accessed on the internet at http://sciencenordic.com/arctic-moth-turns-after-140-years on 15 February 2021.

O’Meara E. 1874. On diatomaceae from Spitzbergen. Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science 14, 254.

Perry S.J. 1881. Transit of Venus, 1874 Part IV. Expedition to Kerguelen Land under the reverend S.J. Perry, F.R.S. In G Airy (ed.): Account of observations of the Transit of Venus, 1874, December 8, made under the authority of the British government: and of the reduction of the observations. Pp. 403–448. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

Peters J., Arvy L. & Peters W. 1980. Pictet and Eaton: the first mayfly specialists. In J.F. Flannagan & K.E. Marshall (eds.): Advances in Ephemeroptera biology. Pp. 531–537. Boston: Springer.

Roff D. 1990. The evolution of flightlessness in insects. Ecological Monographs 60, 389–421, doi: 10.2307/1943013.

Rozwadowski H. 2005. Fathoming the ocean: the discovery and exploration of the deep sea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Søli G., Aavik L. & Magnussen T. 2018. Plutella polaris Zeller, 1880 (Lepidoptera, Plutellidae) rediscovered at Svalbard, Norway, with comments on its taxonomic distribution. Nota Lepidopterologica 41, 129–137, doi: 10.3897/nl.41.22423.

Stainton H. 1880. On the singular new species of Plutella (allied to P. cruciferarum) collected in Spitzbergen, in 1873, by the Rev. A.E. Eaton. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 17, 109.

Stokes G. & Huxley T. 1879. Preface. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 168, v–vi.

Verrall G. 1879. Diptera. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 168, 238–248.

Waterhouse C. 1879. Coleoptera. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 168, 230–234.

Wild J.J. 1877. Thalassa, an essay on the depth, temperature and currents of the ocean. London: Marcus Ward.