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Concept
Charles Dixon (ornithologist)
Summary
Charles Dixon (1858 – 17 June 1926) was an English ornithologist, born in London. He discovered the St Kilda wren and a new species in North Africa. He collaborated with Henry Seebohm on his great work on British Birds, in the second volume of which he summarized and modified A. R. Wallace's theory of the relation between nests and coloration of birds. Elliott Coues wrote in the preface to the American edition of Dixon's book "Rural bird life" pointing out the originality of the observations made from the field and Julian Huxley noted Dixon for recognizing the value of prismatic binoculars for bird study. In his later years, he wrote in the newspapers on agricultural fairs and horse shows.
Little is known of Dixon's early life. Dixon's early studies on ornithology were followed by numerous books. He did not believe in the role of natural selection in evolution and in his Evolution without Natural Selection (1885) he used examples of adaptations that were apparently of little survival value to illustrate his position. Reviewers were quick to point out that natural selection essentially works on adaptations that do have a survival value. He also argued that Darwin was mistaken to conclude that ornate male plumages evolved due to female selection.
Dixon made a special study of bird migration — especially in his 1892 book The Migration of Birds (new edition, 1897), an ingenious theoretical work — and of geographical distribution of birds. Dixon changed his ideas drastically between the two editions of his book on migration. In the 1892 edition he supported the idea that birds moved out of unfavourable environmental conditions but in the 1897 edition he suggested that migration is essentially derived from dispersal and range extension of birds. He believed that glaciation in former times could not have induced migration on its own and that southward migration was because of a former mass of tropical land that stretched around the equator. Reviewers did not think of his theories as being well-founded.
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