134 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



so gained the esteem of Mr. Bacon, that he left him by his will the 

 next presentation to the rectory of Barham ; to this he was inducted 

 in the year 1796, so that for sixty-eight years he exercised his 

 ministry in the same charge, residing also in the same parsonage- 

 house. His first taste for natural history was excited by his mother 

 having been accustomed to lend him, when a child, occasionally as 

 a treat, some of the foreign shells in her cabinet to look at and ad- 

 mire. This early admiration of the works of creation led him, soon 

 after he entered on his curacy at Barham, to direct his attention to 

 botany, and he closely studied and made a collection of all the phse- 

 nogamous plants in his neighbourhood. When these were ex- 

 hausted, his attention was turned to entomology, by the circum- 

 stance of observing on his window a yellow cow-lady (Coccinella 

 22-punctata), his admiration of which led him to collect other in- 

 sects ; and as great events often arise from trifling causes, the whole 

 of his entomological career probably depended on his having been 

 struck by this insect. The energies of his powerful mind were also 

 with equal diligence directed to the study of theology. In the year 

 1829 he published a volume of Sermons, partly (to use his own lan- 

 guage) to show that while he devoted so much of his time to the 

 study of God's works, he had not been negligent of his Word. Sub- 

 sequently he was appointed to write one of the ' Bridgewater Trea- 

 tises,' which he published in the year 1835 ; and the manner in 

 which he executed this task, although then in his seventy-sixth year, 

 is too well known to need any comment. 



Mr. Kirby was twice married, but left no issue. Besides being 

 Honorary President of the Entomological Society from the time of 

 its foundation, he was President of the Ipswich Museum, Fellow of 

 the Royal, Zoological and Geological Societies, and Honorary Mem- 

 ber of numerous foreign societies. He was elected into the Linnean 

 Society in 1796; and had consequently been fifty-four years a 

 Member at the period of his death, which took place at Barham on 

 the 4th of last July, in the ninety-first year of his age. He was 

 interred on Thursday (the 11th), in the chancel of Barham Church. 

 The funeral, in compliance with his expressed wish, was as private 

 as possible, but a great number of friends, nearly the whole of his 

 own, and many from the adjoining parishes, attended to pay the last 

 tribute of respect to his great worth. 



Many years since he presented to the Entomological Society his 

 entire collection of insects ; invaluable, as being the depositary of 

 his entomological discoveries during a long life, and of the precise 

 individual species referred to in his papers in the ' Linnean Trans- 



