He was English in origin, the son of Henri Milne-Edwards and grandson of Bryan Edwards, a Jamaican planter who settled at Bruges (then in France).

[1] He became the director of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in 1891, devoting himself especially to fossil birds and deep-sea exploration.

[2] His study of fossils led to the discovery of tropical birds such as trogons and parrots from prehistoric France.

Burck,[5] and a homonym of its basionym Isonandra gutta Hook..)[6] In 1879, Milne-Edwards was the first to describe the giant isopod Bathynomus Giganteus in the Scientific journal Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences.

[7] A subspecies of Central American lizard, Holcosus festivus edwardsii Bocourt, 1873, is named in honor of Milne-Edwards.