Biologist Edward Blyth postulated the basic ideas of evolutionary theory in a paper published 6 months before Darwin returned on the "The Beagle" from the Galápagos Islands, to start his evolutionary research.

Darwin praised other work of Blyth. And Darwin referenced a paper appearing in the same journal next to Blyth's paper. Also Darwin began for the first time to use a technical term after it appeared in Blyth's paper, and examples cited in some of Darwin's work first appeared in Blyth's two papers on evolutionary theory. (Students have been accused of plagiarism on similar grounds.)

See Darwin and The Mysterious Mr. X, by Loren Eisley, the distinguished American palaeontologist and science essayist.