of my work…' (Correspondence, 1800) This, the first scientific treatise on English bees, brought him to the notice of leading entomologists in Britain and abroad. Extensive correspondence followed with scientists including Alexander Macleay, Walkenaer, Johan Christian Fabricius and Adam Afzelius. 153 of the bee species, including Lasioglossum malachurum, came from Kirby's own parish. Kirby began planning his Introduction to Entomology, a celebrated title, in 1808. This was the practical result of a friendship formed in 1805 with William Spence and appeared in four volumes between 1815 and 1826. Much of the work fell to Kirby owing to Spence's ill health. The book was illustrated by John Curtis. It reached its seventh edition in 1856. In 1830 he was invited to write one of the Bridgewater Treatises, his subject being The History, Habits, and Instincts of Animals (2 vols., 1835). With Edward Sabine and J.E. Gray, Kirby prepared the natural history supplement for Captain William Parry's 1819–1820 polar expedition to seek the North-West Passage: his work formed the insect section of the Account of the Animals seen by the late Northern Expedition while within the Arctic Circle 1821. His friend W.J. Hooker established his contact with John Richardson to involve him in the publication of findings from Sir John Franklin's 1st and 2nd expeditions, the insect section in the Fauna Boreali-Americana in 1837. Institution-founding activities In 1815, Kirby took his MA with the intention of applying for the Professorship of Botany at the University of Cambridge when it should become vacant. A dispute arose as to whether this appointment lay in the grant of the Senate or the Crown. Kirby's Tory political complexion proved a stumbling-block, and in the event John Stevens Henslow was appointed. In 1827, Kirby assisted Henry Denny in arranging the natural history specimens at Norwich Museum. In 1832, he helped to establish an early museum in Ipswich under the aegis of the town's Literary Institute, and presented a herbarium and a group of fossils. With Spence, he helped to found the Entomological Society of London in 1833, with John Westwood as Secretary, and became its Honorary President for life. On that occasion, he presented his own cabinet of insects, collected over more than 40 years, which contained many of the specimens figured in his papers. Kirby was the original President of the Ipswich Museum, 1847–50, fulfilling a project which he had advocated since 1791, and appeared with