Natural History
During his time in various remote places he studied the local birds and butterflies. He was among the first to study and report from the remote Khru valley, the Coorg district in southern India as well as from parts of northeast India and Africa. While in India he was an active member of the Bombay Natural History Society. He worked at coffee plantations in Coorg at Coovercully near Somwarpet and Yemmegundi at Pollibetta. His studies of the birds of Coorg during this time led to his major work on the birds of Coorg which he published in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society to "complement" the results of the Mysore survey that Salim Ali was undertaking at around the same time. His work was ahead of his time in that the entire study was based purely on observations and not on collected skins. His notes document the differences in the avifauna of the dry and wet zones of Coorg and also provide arrival dates for local and long distance migrants. The editors of the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society noted:
| “ | Mr F. N. Betts contributed a well illustrated paper on the Birds of a South Indian Tank in the Province of Coorg. Ecological notes of this description covering bird life in relation to a particular environment deserve encouragement and indicate a line of study which might with advantage be followed by others in the country. | ” |
Many of his notes on the birdlife of India were used by Salim Ali.
His work in Kenya led to a major paper on 'The Birds of Masai'. He also took an interest in orchid cultivation. He became a member of the Hampshire Field Club's Ornithological section and of the Hampshire Naturalists' Trust. He was Secretary of the New Forest beagles, served on the New Forest Consultative Panel, and was a Treasurer of the Burley Branch of the British Legion.
Read more about this topic: Frederick Nicholson Betts
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