William Forsell Kirby

William Forsell Kirby.

William Forsell Kirby (born January 14, 1844 in Leicester , † November 20, 1912 in London ) was an English entomologist and folklorist .

Born the son of banker Samuel Kirby, William F. Kirby received a private education. He began to be interested in butterflies at an early age . As early as 1862 he published the Manual of European Butterflies, a small work on European butterflies.

In 1866 he married Johanna Maria Kappel, who died in 1893. He had a son.

From 1867 he worked as an assistant at the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society and in 1871 wrote the Synonymic Catalog of Diurnal Lepidoptera (including the 1877 supplement), i.e. a directory of butterflies .

In 1879, after the death of Frederick Smith , he went to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington as an assistant , where he worked until his retirement in 1909. He published a number of directories, especially on plant wasps , dragonflies , moths and right winged moths , as well as other entomological works such as the Elementary Text-book of Entomology (1885). In 1899 he first described the Weta species Libanasidus vittatus from South Africa.

In addition to his professional activity, Kirby dealt intensively with Nordic and Oriental folk poetry and translated numerous works into English, including the Kalevala from Finnish.

Works

• Manual of European Butterflies , 1862
• Ed-Dimiryaht, an Oriental Romance, and other Poems , 1867
• Synonymic Catalog of Diurnal Lepidoptera , 1871
• European Butterflies and Moths (based on Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Berges Butterfly Book ), 1878–1882
• Four Gospels explained by their Writers (translation from French, by JB Roustaing), 1881
• List of Hymenoptera: Tenthredinidae and Siricidae in the Collection of the British Museum , 1882
• New Arabian Nights , 1882
• Evolution and Natural Theology , 1883
• The Hero of Esthonia (from Estonian and German sources), 1895
• Bibliographical Notes on the 1001 Nights , 1885-1888
• Textbook of Entomology , 1885
• Synonymic Catalog of Odonata or Dragonflies , 1890
• Synonymic Catalog of Heterocera (Moths): Sphinges and Bombyces , 1892
• Handbook of Lepidoptera , 1894-1897
• Familiar Butterflies and Moths , 1901
• Marvels of Ant Life , 1898
• Synonymic Catalog of Orthoptera , 1904-1910
• British Flowering Plants , 1906
• Translation of the Kalevala , 1907
• Mammals of the World , 1907