“ Born a naturalist, and having no relish for the practical duties of a surgeon, Forbes in the spring of 1836 abandoned the idea of taking a medical degree, resolving to devote himself to science and literature. ”

“ From a variety of arguments the conclusion is drawn that the greater part of the terrestrial animals and flowering plants of the British Islands migrated thitherward, over continuous land, at three distinct periods, before, during and after the glacial epoch. On this subject Forbes’s brilliant generalizations are now regarded as only partially true (see C. Reid’s Origin of the British Flora, 1899) . In the autumn of 1848 Forbes married the daughter of General Sir C. Ashworth; and in the same year was published his Monograph of the British Naked-eyed Medusae (Ray Society) . ”

“ FORBES, EDWARD (1815–1854) , British naturalist, was born at Douglas, in the Isle of Man, on the 12th of February 1815. While still a child, when not engaged in reading, or in the writing of verses and drawing of caricatures, he occupied himself with the collecting of insects, shells, minerals, fossils, plants and other natural history objects. From his fifth to his eleventh year, delicacy of health precluded his attendance at any school, but in 1828 he became a day scholar at Athole House Academy in Douglas. In June 1831 he left the Isle of Man for London, where he studied drawing. ”