1913.] 



19 



of insects stored tliere havinj,'' hitherto been under the care of the Keeper of 

 Zoology. At the beginning of the new financial year, therefore, there will be a 

 special Department of Entomology under its own Keeper, and Mr. C. J. Gahan. 

 who has actually been in charge of the section for upwards of two years, has 

 lieen selected for the newly created post. He was appointed an Assistant in the 

 Department of Zoology in 1886. — Eds. 



ituarieji. 



William Forsell Kirhy, who passed away after a short illness on November 

 20th last, as briefly intimated in our December number, was interred at Chiswick 

 Cemetery on the 26th, several representative Entomologists being present at the 

 funeral service. 



The eldest son of Mr. Samuel Kirby, a banker of Leicester, he was born in 

 that city on January l^th, IS-ii. He was educated by private tutors, and at an 

 early age displayed an unusual taste for reading ; at the suggestion of his 

 mother he began making a collection of butterflies and moths, thus laying the 

 foundation of his svibsequent brilliant reputation as an Entomologist, As early 

 as 1856 we find him contributing to the " Entomologist's Weekly Intelligencer," 

 and in the same year he issued a " List of British Lepidoptera " ; in 1862 his 

 earliest book, the very iisef ul little " Manual of European Butterflies " was 

 published, being the first English work of its kind, later on (1878 — 82) followed 

 by a more comprehensive popular work on the European Macro-Lejndoptera, 

 which has more than once been re-issiied. 



In 1867 Mr. Kirby, who had in the previous year married Fraulein J. M. 

 Kappel, daughter of J. W. Kappel of Hilden, near Diisseldorf, accepted the post 

 of curator in the Museiun of the Royal Dublin Society (afterwards the National 

 Museum of Science and Art), and resided in Dublin until his transfer, on the 

 death of Mr. Frederick Smith in 1879, to the Zoological Department of the 

 British Museum It was during this period that he published in 1871 (with 

 Supplement, 1877), his well-known " Synonymic Catalogue of Diurnal Lepido- 

 ptera," this being probably his best and most useful piece of Entomological work, 

 and even now of the utmost valiie to all students of these insects. Other 

 catalogues of the same natui-e compiled by him are those of the Tenthredinidae 

 and Siricidse in the British Museiun (1883) ; Odonata (1890) ; Lepidoptera 

 Uetcrocera; Sphinges and Bomhyces (1892), unfortunately left incomplete for lack 

 of svifficient support ; and Orthoptera (3 vols.) completed only about two yeai'S 

 ago. Among other well-known and valviable works on our science by Mr. Kirby, 

 the sumptuously ilkxstrated " Rhopalocera Exotica " in association with 

 Mr. Henley Grose-Smith (1887 — 97) ; "Elementary Text-Book of Entomology" 

 (1885, new edition 1892) ; the very useful little " Handbook of the Order 

 Lepidoptera" in Allen's "Naturalist's Library" (5 vols., 1894^—1897); and 

 " Marvels of Ant-Life (1898) may be specially recalled to mind. From 1869 to 

 1884 he also contributed the annual reports to the Zoological Record, at first on 

 the Lepidoptera only, and latterly on the greater part of the Insecta. 



