The Rev. William Kirby, Rector of Barham, Suffolk, who died on the 4th
ult. in the ninety-first year of his age, with his faculties little
impaired, ranked as the father of Entomology in England; and to the
successful results of his labors may he chiefly attributed the advance
which has been made in this over other kindred departments of natural
history. His reputation is based not so much on the discoveries made
by him in the science as on the manner of its teaching. No man ever
approached the study of the works of nature with a purer or more
earnest zeal. His interpretation of the distinguishing characters of
insects for the purposes of classification has excited the warmest
approval of entomologists at home and abroad; while his agreeable
narrative of their wonderful transformations and habits, teeming with
analyses and anecdote, has a charm for almost every kind of reader.
Mr. Kirby's first work of particular note was the "Monographia Apum
Angliæ", in two volumes published half a century ago at Ipswich; to
which town he was much endeared, and in whose Museum, as President,
under the friendly auspices of its Secretary, Mr. George Ransome, he
took a lively interest. His admirable work on the Wild Bees of Great
Britain was composed from materials collected almost entirely by
himself,--and most of the plates were of his etching. Entomology was
at that time a comparatively new science in this country, and it is an
honorable proof of the correctness of the author's views that they are
still acknowledged to be genuine.
His further progress in entomology is abundantly marked by various
papers in the "Transactions of the Linnæan Society",--by the
entomological portion of the Bridgewater Treatise "On the History,
Habits, and Instincts of Animals,"--and by his descriptions, occupying
a quarto volume, of the insects of Sir John Richardson's "Fauna
Boreali-Americana." The name of Kirby will, however, be chiefly
remembered for the "Introduction on Entomology" written by him in
conjunction with Mr. Spence. In this work a vast amount of material,
acquired after many years' unremitting observation of the insect
world, is mingled together by two different but congenial minds in
the pleasant form of familiar letters. The charm, based on substantial
knowledge of the subject, which these letters impart, has caused
them to be studied with an interest never before excited by any work
on natural history,--and they have served for the model of many an
interesting and instructive volume. Whether William Kirby or William
Spence had the more meritorious share in the composition of these
Letters, has never been ascertained; for each, in the plenitude of his
esteem and love for the other, renounced all claim, in favor of his
coadjutor, to whatever portion of the matter might be most valued.
In addition to the honor of being President of the Museum of his
county town--in which there is an admirable portrait of him--Mr. Kirby
was Honorary President of the Entomological Society of London, Fellow
of the Royal, Linnæan, Geological, and Zoological Societies of the
same city, and corresponding member of several foreign societies.
* * * * *
The death of REV. DR. GRAY, Professor of Oriental Languages in the
University of Glasgow, is reported in the Scotch papers.
* * * * *