Distant was born in Rotherhithe, the son of whaling captain Alexander Distant[1] and his wife, Sarah Ann Distant (née Berry).[2]
Following his father's death in 1867, a trip to the Malay Peninsula to visit his older brother, also named Alexander and a ship's captain, aroused his interest in natural history, and resulted in the publication of Rhopalocera Malayana (1882–1886), a description of the butterflies of the Malay Peninsula. (He considered 5 August 1867 as the most eventful day in his life[1]).
Career
Much of Distant's early life was spent working in a London tannery, and while employed there he made two long visits to the Transvaal. The first resulted in the publication of A Naturalist in the Transvaal (1892). The second visit, of some four years, gave him time to amass a large collection of insects, of which many were described in Insecta Transvaaliensia (1900–1911). In 1890 he married Edith Blanche de Rubain.
In 1897 he succeeded James Edmund Harting as editor of The Zoologist.[1] He was editor for eighteen years, until the end of 1914, and saw "the substitution of the camera for the gun, more especially among ornithologists."[3] The last two volumes of the journal were edited by Frank Finn. At the end of 1916 The Zoologist amalgamated with British Birds (founded 1908).[4]
From 1899 to 1920 he was employed by the Natural History Museum, describing many new species found in their collection, and devoting most of his time to the "Rhynchota" (a former grouping within true bugs).
