DUBLIN NATURAL HISTOBT 80CIETT. S7 



It is not in Dublin that I need speak of Dr. Ball's subsequent ca- 

 reer. There is no scientific body in this city with which he was not 

 more or less connected or identified ; and the high position to which he 

 had just been named, as President to Section D in the coming Meeting 

 of the British Association, shows the esteem in which he was held by 

 those best competent to form an estimate of his character. It is said you 

 may know a man's character by his friends. Who were Robert Ball's 

 most intimate friends in his own particular branch of study? Forbes, 

 Thompson, Yarrell, Owen, Bell, Johnston, Allman, Patterson — names 

 well known to you all, and some of them of world-wide celebrity ; and 

 I might add to these almost every zoologist of note in this country, and 

 England, and many of the brightest ornaments of zoological science in 

 the continents of Europe and America. How the blank which has been 

 left by his death can be filled up, I know not. He has fallen in the very 

 prime of his age, and in the full career of his usefulness, and there is 

 no one equally qualified as he was to fill the many duties to which his 

 time was devoted. As Secretary of the Royal Zoological Society in par- 

 ticular, his loss will be keenly felt, for it is not too much to say that it was 

 by his exertions mainly — I may almost say wholly — that the Zoological 

 Society was kept alive during the long period of national distress, and 

 to him, in a great measure, is to be attributed its present prosperous 

 condition. It was his favourite care — for he saw in it a great popular 

 instructor — an engine for diffusing a knowledge of animals, their forms 

 and habits, among the masses of the people. That it has largely an- 

 swered this purpose, so far as the very limited funds at its disposal have 

 allowed, will readily be granted; and those who have sat long on its Coun- 

 cil will agree with me that without Dr. Ball's constant and unremitting 

 oversight, that end could not have been attained. His ingenuity was 

 great ; he was constantly devising ingenious contrivances for insuring 

 either the comfort or the better exhibition of the animals under his care; 

 and in the aeration and general management of the fish-tanks — ^the 

 latest attraction of the Gardeil — he made many improvements. 



But it would be endless to speak of the many ways in which he 

 made his talents useful on every subject that engaged his attention — 

 whether it were devising tanks, dredges, and nets for the zoologist ; 

 fern-cases for the botanist ; rapid diagram paintings for the lecturer; or 

 in arrangements for facilitating the dispatch of the official business in 

 which he was so much engaged. I would rather dwell for a moment on 

 that feature of his character which attracted and fixed the friendship of 

 so many distinguished men, I mean his perfect openness and truthM- 

 ness, and the pleasure he took in imparting to any sincere inquirer 

 whatever information was in his power on subjects connected with his 

 favourite science. 



He has not published much, but he has communicated much valua- 

 ble and original information to others, by whom it has been made pub- 

 lic. It is only necessary to turn to the works of Yarrell on Birds and 

 Fishes, of Bell on Quadrupeds and Crustacea, of Forbes on the Starfishes 

 andMollusca,not to speak of Thompson's *' Natural History oflreland," to 



