He did not find the teaching satisfactory and began to work as a pharmacist in Tooting, but quit in 1837 to try his luck as an author and editor.

He married in 1854, and tried to supplement his income by writing under a pseudonym (Zoophilus) for the Indian Sporting Review, and traded live animals between India and Britain to wealthy collectors in both countries.

In this venture he sought the collaboration of eminent people such as Charles Darwin and John Gould, both of whom declined these offers.

He complained to the trustees of the museum but it was dismissed with several character references in favour of Gray including Charles Darwin.

[11] Mr. Blyth, who is rightly called the Father of Indian Ornithology, was by far the most important contributor to our knowledge of the Birds of India.

[8] Edward Blyth wrote three articles on variation, discussing the effects of artificial selection and describing the process in nature as restoring organisms in the wild to their archetype (rather than forming new species).

This was incorrect: an 1832 letter written by Darwin commented that William Sharp Macleay "never imagined such an inosculating creature".

[27] Both Ernst Mayr and Cyril Darlington interpret Blyth's view of natural selection as maintaining the type: In this negative formulation, natural selection only preserves a constant and unchangeable type or essence of created form, by eliminating extreme variations or unfit individuals that deviate too far from this essence.

The formulation goes back to the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles, and the theologian William Paley set out a variation on this argument in 1802, to refute (in later pages) a claim that there had been a wide range of initial creations, with less viable forms eliminated by nature to leave the modern range of species:[29][30] The way Blyth himself argued about the modification of species can be illustrated by an extract concerning the adaptations of carnivorous mammals: Stephen Jay Gould writes that Eiseley erred in failing to realize that natural selection was a common idea among biologists of the time, as part of the argument for created permanency of species.

Around 1865, he began to help Thomas C. Jerdon in the writing of the Birds of India but had a mental breakdown and had to be kept in a private asylum.

[7][9] Although Blyth spent most of his time in the museum in India, he was aware and interested in the study of birds in life.

Reptilian species and a genus bearing his name include Blythia reticulata, Eumeces blythianus, and Rhinophis blythii.