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William Forsell Kirby

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Not to be confused with the earlier English entomologist William Kirby.

William Forsell Kirby

William Forsell Kirby (14 January 1844 – 20 November 1912[1]) was an English entomologist and folklorist. He specialized in the study of the stick insects, describing nearly 70 species and 22 genera. His collected filled 120 cabinets and claimed that on reorganization, it would need 500 drawers. The stick insect Phobaeticus kirbyi described from Borneo and named by Brunner in 1907 after Kirby is one of the largest stick insects in the world.

Life and work

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Kirby was born in Leicester. He was the eldest son of banker Samuel Kirby and Lydia Forsell. He was educated privately, and became interested in butterflies and moths at an early age. The family moved to Brighton, where he became acquainted with Henry Cooke, Frederick Merrifield and J. N. Winter[2] through the Brighton and Sussex entomological society. He published his first entomological article in 1856. He was elected fellow of the Entomological Society of London in 1861. He published the Manual of European Butterflies in 1862.[3]

Kirby lived in Germany in 1866 where he met and married Johanna Maria Kappel (1835-1893). Johanna known as "Hannchen" was the second daughter of farmer Wilhelm Kappel and Sibilla Gertraud Kirberg. They had a son William Egmont Kirby (1844 -1912) who also became an entomologist. Johanna's younger brother was the entomologist August Kappel (1840-1915) who became a fellow of the Linnean Society. In 1867 Kirby became a curator in the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society, and produced a Synonymic Catalogue of Diurnal Lepidoptera (1871; Supplement 1877). He moved to London in 1879 when he joined the staff of the British Museum (Natural History) as an assistant, after the death of Frederick Smith. Here he lived close to his friend H. W. Bates after whom he named a couple of stick insect species.[3]

Kirby published a number of catalogues, as well as Rhopalocera Exotica (1887–1897) and an Elementary Text-book of Entomology. He also did important work on orthopteroid insects including a three volume Catalogue of all known species (1904, 1906, 1910). He retired in 1909.[3]

Kirby had a wide range of interests, knew many languages (a working knowledge of German, Italian, Persian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish) and fully translated Finland's national epic, the Kalevala, from Finnish into English. Kirby's translation, which carefully reproduces the Kalevala meter, was a major influence on the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, who first read it in his teens. Kirby also provided many footnotes to Sir Richard Burton's translation of the Arabian Nights.[2]

Kirby died at Chiswick and was buried in Chiswick cemetery. An obituary was written by his son who noted that he was “never tiring assistance to all who required help or counsel endeared him to a large circle of friends and acquaintances”.[3]

Evolution

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Kirby was an advocate of theistic evolution. In his book Evolution and Natural Theology, he argued that evolution and theism are compatible. He noted that creationism was scientifically untenable and refuted its arguments.[4] He viewed nature as a "vast self-adjusting machine".[5]

Publications

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Entomology

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An illustration of the cicada Thopha saccata in Kirby's 1885 Elementary text-book of entomology
Collaborative works, and other acknowledgements

Other biology

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Literary

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Notes

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  1. ^ Who's Who, 1914, p. xxii
  2. ^ a b Rao, B.R. Subba (1998), History of entomology in India, Institution of Agricultural Technologists, Bangalore
  3. ^ a b c d Bragg, P.E. (2007), "Biographies of Phasmatologists – 4. William Forsell Kirby", Phasmid Studies, 16 (1): 5–10, ISSN 0966-0011
  4. ^ Kirby 1883, pp. 15–29.
  5. ^ England, Richard (2003). Design after Darwin, 1860-1900. Vol. 2. Thoemmes. p. 17. ISBN 978-1843710813.

Further reading

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  • The Natural History Museum at South Kensington by William T. Stearn ISBN 0-434-73600-7
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