OBITUARY NOTICE. 
327 
XV. 
OBITUARY NOTICE. 
Lieut.-Colonel Leonard Howard Loyd Irby. 
By the death of Colonel Irby, which took place at his London 
residence on 14th May, 1905, we have to lament the loss 
of an accomplished Ornithologist of Norfolk origin, and 
a Vice-President of our Society. 
The son of a distinguished father, the late Rear-Admiral 
the Hon. Frederick Paul Irby, C.B., Col. Irby was born at 
Boyland Hall in 1836, and educated at Rugby ; he entered 
the army as Ensign in the 90th Light Infantry in May, 1854, 
and proceeded almost at once to the Crimea, where he served 
throughout the winter of 1854-55, and was present at the 
siege of Sebastopol. In 1859, on his way to China (one of 
his fellow-captains being Garnet Wolseley), he was wrecked 
in the Straits of Banca, in the unfortunate troop-ship 
“ Transit,” and on being taken off by the “ Dove,” the troops 
were diverted to India where the Sepoy Rebellion had broken 
out. After a march of 700 miles from Calcutta, they reached 
Cawnpore, shortly after the massacre, and he saw much hard 
fighting at Lucknow and elsewhere under Clyde and Outram. 
He returned to England in 1S60, and after seeing service at 
Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, retired from the army with 
the rank of Lieut.-Colonel in 1874. 
From his earliest years devoted to Natural History, Irby 
lost no opportunity of pursuing his favourite pursuit, and 
in later years his stay at Gibraltar led him to the study of 
the birds of the Spanish peninsula, a then practically unex- 
plored ornithological region, in which he was associated 
with the late Lord Lilford ; this led to the publication of his 
