June, 1Q13 Bulletin of ike Brooklyn Entomological Society 69 



Under these circumstances the sweet -sou led Rector worked 

 primarily for the love of working, but indirectly to postpone 

 as far as possible the wave of the River Oblivion which in time 

 overtakes all humanity. He lamented the fall of Adam, who, 

 with the undegenerate mind, named every species in the Garden 

 of Eden. To Kirby's mind no idea of evolution ever came. 

 God had created all species in a single day. A hundred genera- 

 tions of scholars, he thought, could not rediscover more than a 

 fraction of what Adam knew. He refused a professorship of 

 botany at Cambridge and devoted himself entirely to entomology 

 at home. 



Yet this man in the obscurity of the country became the 

 greatest authority of his time, and his biography is a history 

 of the half century in English natural science. He read Linne's 

 System of Nature during Linne's prime of life. Seventy 

 For St. years later he corresponded with Leconte in Philadelphia. 

 There was no dearth of English literature at hand. 

 As long ago as 1766 Moses Harris, the copper plate engraver, 

 had published his "Aurelian, " a manual of moths and butter- 

 flies with 41 colored plates. This work ran through several 

 editions and was translated into French and German. Drew 

 Drury got out his work on exotic insects in 1770, with English 

 and French text and 50 plates engraved by Moses Harris. For- 

 ster, the elder, had published his century of new beetle species, 

 a number American, about the same time. 



The Linnean Society of London was founded in 1788 with 

 Kirby as a corresponding charter member. His first 

 Kirby entomological paper, "Three Species of Cassida, " 

 was read and published in 1793. It was in 1802 that he 

 published his first book, "The Bees of England," the product 

 of fifteen years daily observation. His fame was immediate. 

 His parsonage became the Mecca of entomologists, his chair at 

 the Linnean Society to be kept vacant in his absence. 



At the beginning of the century Thomas Marsham was the 

 leader of British insect collectors and was carrying on his 

 " Entomologica Britannica. " John Francillon made a famous 

 collection and had some beetles from Georgia, U. S. A. Edward 

 Donovan was another great collector, of insects, shells and many 

 other things. His first great work, on British Natural History, 



