Issued by India

Issued on Nov 12, 1996

Issued for : The Department of Post is happy to issue a set of two stamps to commemorate Salim Ali’s birth centenary.

Design Credit :
Stamp, FDC and Cancellation Design : Bombay Natural History Society.

Type : Stamps, Postal Used

Colour : Multicolour

Denomination : 800 & 1100 Paise

Overall size : 3.50 x 7.00 cms.

Printing size : 3.15 x 6.65 cms.

Perforation : 13 x 13

Paper : Imported un w/m Adhesive Gravure Coated Stamp Paper in Sheets 50.8 x 53.5 cms.

Number of Stamps Printed : 0.4 Million

Number per issue sheet : 18

Printing Process : Photogravure

Printer : India Security Press, Nasik

Name : Sálim Moizuddin Abdul Ali

Born on Nov 12, 1896 at Mumbai, India

Died on Jun 20, 1987 at Mumbai, India

About : 

• Salim Moizuddin Abdul Ali was a versatile ornithologist, explorer, ecologist, teacher & a writer. Born on 12^th November, 1896, Salim Ali took up ornithology at a time when the subject in India was little more than an Englishman’s pastime. Salim Ali made it a serious pursuit. In 1930 he went to the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) with a proposal. Indian birds had not been studied systematically, so would the Society send him on ornithological surveys? He didn’t want a salary, only expenses. Thus for the next 20 years Salim Ali roamed the subcontinent, studying birds from Kutch to Sikkim, from Afghanistan to Kerala. His methods were so unique – he wove history, ecology and geography into his description of a bird and its habitat.
• In 1941 Salim Ali published ‘The Book of Indian Birds’. It was an instant success. During this period he formed a deep and abiding friendship with S. Dillon Ripley, a young zoologist with the US Army in Ceylon. Pooling their vast knowledge, the two men would later publish the ten-volume Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan.
• He was an active conservationist (as he was an ornithologist). His role in setting up of the Bharatpur and Karnal bird sanctuaries, the decision not to destroy Kerala‘s Silent Valley for the sake of a power project, the saving of the Keoladeo National Park are eloquent testimony to his concern for environment.
• Recognition came late to Dr. Salim Ali, but it came abundantly. The Asiatic Society‘s Gold Medal for Research in Asiatic Zoology, the Padma Bhushan 1958, and the Padma Vibhushan in 1976 from the Govt. of India, the Sunderlal Hora Memorial Prize of the Indian National Science Academy, the Honorary degree of D. Sc. From the Universities of Delhi, Andhra and Aligarh, the Union Gold Medal of the British Ornithologist Union, the Pavlovsky Centenary Memorial, Medal of the USSR Academy of Medical Science, the Order of the Golden Arc of the Netherlands, the C.V. Raman Medal of the Indian National Science Academy, the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh Gold Medal, National Research Professorship in Ornithology from the Govt. of India, and the Paul Getty International Prize for Wildlife Conservation.
• The BNHS was his family and to it he left all the assets accruing from his publications. Nothing could dampen Salim Ali’s spirit, not even old age. Until his 87^th year, he conducted major expeditions, and in 1983 spent four weeks in the remote and difficult Namdapha National Park, near the Burmese border. Two years later he was set to go to the Himalayas in search of mountain quails, last seen in 1858. But he suddenly fell ill. He used the time to finish one more book, ‘The Fall of a Sparrow’, his delightful autobiography.
• Text : Bombay Natural History Society.

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Issued by India

Issued on May 18, 1983

Issued for : Indian Posts & Telegraphs Department is privileged to issue a stamp to honour the memory of a great naturalist.

Description of Designs : The stamp shows the portrait of Charles Darwin alongwith HMS Beagle and the route it took to the Galapagos Islands. A line drawing of the land iguana found on those islands has also been shown. Both the stamp and first day cover have been designed by M. Mandal. Cancellation has been designed by Charanjit Lal.

Type : Stamp, Postal Used

Colour : Multicolour

Denomination : 200 Paise

Overall size : 4.06 X 2.73 cms.

Printing size : 3.71 X 2.38 cms.

Perforation : 13 x 13

Paper : Unwatermarked adhesive stamp paper

Number printed : 20,00,000

Number per issue sheet : 40

Printing process : Photogravure

Printed at : India Security Press

Name : Charles Robert Darwin

Born on Feb 12, 1809 at The Mount, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England

Died on Apr 19, 1882 at Down House, Kent, England

About : 

• Charles Darwin was born in 1809, in the town of Shrewsbury (England), the fifth child of Robert and Susannah Darwin. At the age of nine, he entered Shrewsbury School for formal schooling. He was a voracious reader with a taste for natural history, travel and poetry. At the age of sixteen, he was enrolled as a medical student at Edinburgh University, which he left after two years. He joined Christ’s College, Cambridge in 1828 as a student of theology. Though he obtained a pass degree in theology, he spent much of his time at Cambridge in pursuing his interests in natural history.
• In 1831, at the age of twenty two, Charles Darwin embarked on a momentous globe-girdling voyage. He joined the crew of the Royal Navy‘s survey ship, H.M.S. Beagle as a naturalist. For the next five years, the Beagle circumnavigated the earth, sailing across the Atlantic to the east coast of South America, through the straits of Tierra del Fuego North along the west coast to Galapagos Islands, then across the Pacific to Sydney and home to England via Cape of Good Hope and Bahia (Brazil). Everything he encountered – seabirds and beetles on bare mid-Atlantic rock, teeming fauna and flora in South American Jungles, fossils in the high Andes; all were minutely recorded in his diaries. Darwin was deeply impressed by everything he saw and experienced. All these, combined with the puzzling differences between animals and birds of the same species living on the various Galapagos Islands, led him to conclude that all species of plant and animal life have slowly evolved over thousands of years, adapting themselves to their environment by a process of natural selection, leaving only the selected species to survive. These findings and events, during the voyage of the Beagle resulted in the publication of his two great books, The Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871). These books continue to influence human thought ever since.
• In 1842, Darwin left London and took up residence at Down House in the village of Downe in Kent, where he spent the rest of his life studying and writing. He died on 19^th April 1882 at his home in Downe and was buried close to Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey.

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Issued by India

Issued on Jan 24, 1976

Issued for : The Posts & Telegraphs Department is privileged to issue a commemorative stamp in honour of Jim Corbett during the year of his birth centenary.

Description of Design : The design of the stamp is vertical and depicts a tiger.

Type : Stamp, Postal Used

Colour : Multi-colour

Denomination : 25 Paise

Overall size : 3.91 X 2.90 cms.

Printing size : 3.56 X 2.54 cms.

Perforation : 13 x 13

Watermark : Printed on unwatermarked adhesive stamp paper

Number printed : 30,00,000

Number per issue sheet : 35

Printing process : Photogravure

Designed and printed at : India Security Press

Name : Edward James Corbett

Born on Jul 25, 1875 at Nainital, United Provinces, British India [now in Uttarakhand]

Died on Apr 19, 1955 at Nyeri, Kenya

About : 

• Edward James Corbett alias Jim Corbett, as he is widely known, was born at Nainital on July 25, 1875. His father, Christopher Corbett, was a Post Master at Nainital. Jim got his schooling at Nainital and studied up to Matric. He spent most of his holidays at the family’s winter home at Kaladhungi, 15 miles from Nainital in the foothills. It was in Kaladhungi and its surrounding forests that Jim Corbett learnt all he knew about the jungle.
• Jim Corbett got a job in the Railways at Mokameh Ghat in Bihar at the age of 18. He worked as Fuel Inspector and later as Assistant Station Master and Store Keeper. Thereafter, he became a labour contractor. At the time of the First World War, he got recruited 500 men of Kumaon and took them to France. In 1920, he returned to Nainital. He was a Member of the Municipal Board, Nainital from 1920 to 1944. During the Second World War, he gave Jungle Warfare Training to the soldiers.
• While living at Mokameh Ghat, Jim Corbett used to go to Kumaon to kill man-eaters. He had an excellent knowledge of Kumaon forests and was well-conversant with its wild life. He could call animals by imitating their calls. His shooting was confined to killing of man-eating tigers and leopards. During his hunting career, he shot dead 12 man-eaters which had killed at least 1500 persons among the villages of Kumaon.
• Jim Corbett was a great lover of wild life. He repeatedly stressed the fact that unless wounded or attacked, wild animals seldom or never caused harm to any one. He disliked killing animals except out of necessity. He formed a Society to preserve India’s wild life and published a magazine called ‘Indian Wild Life‘. Through his efforts, a game sanctuary was established in Garhwal known as Hailey National Park. This was re-named in 1957 as Corbett National Park in recognition of his services for preservation of wild life.
• Jim Corbett was a good writer. His writing was fluent, interesting and powerful. He wrote six books – Man–eaters of Kumaon, My India, Man–eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, Jungle Lore, Temple Tiger and Tree Tops. These books became very popular. He spent the major portion of his royalty from these books on the blind in England and India. He also used to distribute medicines to the sick people in Kumaon and took interest in their welfare.
• Jim Corbett migrated to Kenya, along with his sister Maggie, in 1947. He died at Nyeri in Kenya on April 19, 1955 at the age of 80. The Govt. of Uttar Pradesh has acquired his house at Kaladhungi and has maintained it as a Museum.

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