Joseph Smit was born in the Netherlands. He was invited to Britain by Philip Sclater in 1866 and did the lithography for Sclater’s Exotic Ornithology. He also did the lithography for Joseph Wolf’s Zoological Sketches (second series), as well as Daniel Elliott’s monographs on the Phasianeidae and Paradiseida. Smit contributed regularly to the Transactions and the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, Ibis, and The Field.