Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Nicholson Betts (25 October 1906 – 22 August 1973) was a coffee plantation manager,

British Indian Army The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which co ...

officer, a political agent, and an

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

Biography

F. N. Betts (known to friends and family as "Tim"), was born in

Launceston, Cornwall Launceston ( or , locally or , kw, Lannstevan; rarely spelled Lanson as a local abbreviation) is a town, ancient borough, and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is west of the middle stage of the River Tamar, which c ...

, in the UK to Barbara Treby Morshead and Herbert Nicholas Betts. He studied at Winchester College from 1920 to 1924. He went to Ceylon and worked in the tea plantations there and later in the coffee plantations in

Coorg Kodagu (also known by its former name Coorg) is an administrative district in the Karnataka state of India. Before 1956, it was an administratively separate Coorg State, at which point it was merged into an enlarged Mysore State. It occupies ...

. He was commissioned in India as a captain in the

Punjab Regiment Punjab Regiment may refer to the following existing units: *Punjab Regiment (India) *Punjab Regiment (Pakistan) From 1922 to 1947, the British Indian Army included 6 numbered Punjab Regiments: *1st Punjab Regiment * 2nd Punjab Regiment *8th Punj ...

, second lieutenant (12 September 1929, Lt. 20 June 1930, moving from the reserve to the Indian Army on 1 August 1932) and in 1940, was posted to

Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...

. He was later posted lieutenant colonel (intelligence) in the

V Force V Force was a reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering and guerrilla organisation established by the British against Japanese forces during the Burma Campaign in World War II. Establishment and organisation In April 1942, when the Japanese drove t ...

in the Burma campaign, a guerrilla and intelligence unit in north eastern India which made use of Assam Hill tribesmen. Here he met Ursula Graham Bower, an anthropologist studying the Nagas, whom he married in 1945. The couple had two daughters, Catriona and Alison. In 1946, the government of India made him the first political officer of the Subansiri area between the Assam plains and the McMahon Line (the boundary between India and Tibet). His first task was to march 60 miles into the interior to establish a supply drop zone and to set up a base which could provide supplies for the administrative setup there amid tribes such as the

Nyishis The Nyishi community is the largest ethnic group in Arunachal Pradesh in north-eastern India. In Nyishi, ''Nyi'' refers to "a human" and the word ''shi'' denotes "highland".The Nyishis are mentioned as the Daflas in the contemporary Ahom docume ...

and Apa Tanis. A year after India's independence, he moved to Kenya and served in the veterinary service in the Western Masai Reserve. He later moved from Kenya to the Island of Mull in Scotland where he farmed the Ardura Estate and spent time studying birds, and in 1967 he moved again to the New Forest in Southern England. He died of a stroke when out riding in the New Forest in 1973.

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

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 primarily based on collected skins. He was also among the pioneers of bird photography in India. 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: Many of his notes on the birdlife of India were used by Salim Ali. His work in Kenya led to a major paper, "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.

Publications

''JBNHS'' here is short for the ''Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society''. * (1965) "Notes on some resident breeding birds of southwest Kenya". '' Ibis''. 108 (4): 513-530. * (1957
"''Halcyon pileata'' inland"
''JBNHS''. 54 (2): 462. * (1956
"Notes on birds of the Subansiri area, Assam"
''JBNHS''. 53 (3): 397-414. * (1956
"Colonization of islands by White-eyes (''Zosterops'' spp.)"
''JBNHS''. 53 (3): 472-473. * (1954
"Occurrence of the Blacknecked Crane (''Grus nigricollis'') in Indian limits"
''JBNHS''. 52 (2&3): 605-606. * (1952
"Birds nesting on telegraph wires"
''JBNHS''. 51 (1): 271-272. * (1952) "The breeding seasons of birds in the hills of South India". ''Ibis''. 94 (4): 621-628. * (1951
"The birds of Coorg. Part II"
''JBNHS''. 50 (2): 224-263. * (1951
"The birds of Coorg. Part I"
''JBNHS''. 50 (1): 20-63. * (1950) "Tangkhul Naga Pottery-Making". '' Man''. 50: 117-118. * (1950
"On a collection of butterflies from the Balipara Frontier Tract and the Subansiri Area. (Northern Assam)"
''JBNHS''. 49 (3): 488-502. * (1948) "The flight of Storks on migration". ''Ibis''. 90 (1): 150-151. * (1947
"Bird life in an Assam jungle"
''JBNHS''. 46 (4): 667-684. * (1940) "Birds of the Seychelles - 2. The sea-birds more particularly those of

Aride Island Aride Island is the northernmost granitic island in the Seychelles ( Bird Island is the northernmost Seychelles island overall). A nature reserve, it is leased and managed by the Island Conservation Society of Seychelles. History The name ‘Ari ...

". ''Ibis'' (14) 4: 489–504. * (1939
"The breeding of the Indian Sooty Tern (''Sterna fuscata infuscata'') in the Laccadive Islands"
''JBNHS''. 40 (4): 763-764. * (1938
"The birds of the Laccadive Islands"
''JBNHS''. 40 (3): 382-387. * (1938
"Some birds of a Coorg down"
''JBNHS''. 40 (1): 39-48. * (1937
"Bird life on a southern Indian tank"
''JBNHS''. 39 (3): 594-602. * (1936
"Wanted information about heronries in South India"
''JBNHS''. 39 (1): 183. * (1935
"Nidification of the Blackheaded Babbler ''Rhopocichla a. atriceps'' (Oates)"
''JBNHS''. 38 (1): 189. * (1935
"Arrival dates of migrant birds in Coorg"
''JBNHS''. 38 (1): 197. * (1934
"Dates of arrival of migrant birds in Coorg in 1932
''JBNHS''. 37 (1): 225. * (1934
"South Indian Woodpeckers"
''JBNHS''. 37 (1): 197-203. * (1932
"Notes on some Ceylon birds"
''JBNHS''. 36 (1): 257-259. * (1931
"The Bulbuls of the Nilgiris"
''JBNHS''. 34 (4): 1024-1028. * (1930
"Migration notes in 1929 from the Nilgiri District"
''JBNHS''. 34 (2): 569. * (1929
"Notes on the birds of Coorg"
''JBNHS''. 33 (3): 542-551. * (1929
"Bird movements in Coorg"
''JBNHS''. 33 (3): 718-719. * (1929
"Migration of the Pied Crested Cuckoo ''Clamator jacobinus''"
''JBNHS''. 33 (3): 714. * (1929
Distribution of the Brown Shrike ''Lanius cristatus cristatus''".
''JBNHS''. 33(3):714.

Works based on his life

Two BBC Radio 4 programs, ''The Naga Queen'', produced by Chris Eldon Lee and narrated by John Horsley Denton, and ''The Butterfly Hunt'', a play by Matthew Solon were based on the life of F. N. Betts and his wife Ursula Graham Bower.

References

Other sources

* Bower, Ursula Graham (1950). ''Naga Path''. London, John Murray. * Bower, Ursula Graham (1953). ''The Hidden Land''. London, John Murray.

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20060424115935/http://www.burmastar.org.uk/nagaqueen.htm * http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hometruths/nagaqueen.shtml * https://web.archive.org/web/20070716155752/http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/1466 {{DEFAULTSORT:Betts English ornithologists 1906 births 1973 deaths British Indian Army officers British people in colonial India Burmese military personnel of World War II People educated at Winchester College People from Launceston, Cornwall 20th-century British zoologists Members of the Bombay Natural History Society