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RICHARD MANLIFFK BARRINCiTON, 

 M.A., F.L.S., :\l.B.O.U., 31.R.I.A. 



(Platk I.) 



No adequate idea can be given of the loss whicli the 

 death of Richard M. Barrington has inflicted on Irish 

 Natural History. His death through sudden heart failure 

 when motoring home from Dublin on the afternoon of 

 September 15th was to his numberless friends as startling 

 a blow as it was grievous. Though in his sixty-seventh 

 year, he lived a life of such strenuous activity as seemed 

 to denote a thoroughly robust man, though he was himself 

 weW aw^are that he had begun to pay the debt imposed 

 on him by his early exploits as an Alpine climber — par- 

 ticularly by his exertions in the summer of 1882. A\-hen 

 in eleven days he ascended the Matterhorn, Jungfravi, 

 Finsteraarhoni and Schrecklioni, with, an equal niunber 

 of high passes, totalling 84,500 feet. 



The leading ornithologist in Ireland since Ussher's 

 death, he had as an all-round naturalist been the central 

 figure in the scientific circles of his native countr\' ever 

 since A. G. More, who had been his lifelong friend, passed 

 away in 1895. Among the leading zoologists and botanists 

 of the United Kingdom there were few whose friendship 

 he had not won, and he had in a no less remarkable degree 

 the confidence of the large circle of lesser naturalists and 

 beginners w^ho felt the force of his magnetic zeal. 



Of an old family knoAni to have settled in the Queen's 

 Co. about 1564, I^ichard IManlilfe Rarrington was bom at 

 Fassaroe, co. Wicklow, on the 22nd of May, 1849. His 

 parents were Edward Barrington, J. P., of Fassaroe. and 

 Huldah Barrington , nee Strangman . Edward Ban-ingt on , 

 a peculiarly energetic and capable farmer, was remarkable 

 for his interest in meteorology ; one of his l)r()tliers was 

 a botanist, and another founded the well-laioMii Bairing- 

 ton Lecture Trust. Young R. M. Barrington greA\- up 

 to develo]) in a marked degi-ee all the scientific tastes 



