William Forsell Kirby

William Forsell Kirby (January 14, 1844 - 1912) was an English entomologist and folklorist.

Born in Leicester, he was educated privately, and became interested in butterflies and moths at an early age. He published a small Manual of European Butterflies in 1862.

In 1867 he became a curator in the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society, and produced a Synonymic Catalogue of Diurnal Lepidoptera (1871; Supplement 1877).

In 1879 Kirby joined the staff of the Natural History Museum as an Assistant after the death of Frederick Smith. He published a number of catalogues, as well as Rhopalocera Exotica (1887-1897) and an Elementary Text-book of Entomology. He retired in 1909.

Kirby had a wide range of interests, knew many languages and translated (for the first time directly from Finnish, as opposed to from another language) the Finnish epic, Kalevala, into English.

Works and Achievements

Literary works

• Manual of European Butterflies. 1862
• Synonymic Catalogue of Diurnal Lepidoptera. 1871
• Familiar butterflies and moths. 1901
• Butterflies and moths of Europe (Illustrated). 1903
• Kalevala the Land of Heroes. 1907. ISBN 0-674-50000-8
• Elementary Text-book of Entomology.
• The Hero of Esthonia? and other studies in the romantic literature of that country. 1895
• Hand-book to the order Lepidoptera. 1897

He is also credited on a few other works:

• "Illustrations of diurnal Lepidoptera." by William Chapman Hewitson 1863
• "Natural history." by Richard Lydekker 1897

External links

• The Natural History Museum at South Kensington William T. Stearn ISBN 434736007
• A handbook to the order Lepidoptera Scanned version
• Elementary Text-book of Entomology Scanned version
• The Hero of Esthonia
• Works by William Forsell Kirby at Project Gutenberg