THOMPSON, William, a very industrious Irish naturalist, was born at Belfast on the 2d of November 1805. He first joined his father as a linen-merchant; but gradually acquiring a taste for natural history, he gave up this business in 1832, and devoted himself henceforward to his favourite study. The minerals, plants, and animals of Ireland, all received his attentive observation. After contributing numerous small papers to the Zoological Society of London, he, in 1840, gave a very excellent "Report on the Fauna of Ireland—Division Vertebrata." Many of his papers are likewise published in the Ray Society's Bibliography and the Annals of Natural History. He published his great work on the Natural History of the Birds of Ireland, in 3 vols., 1849–51. After his death, which occurred in 1852, his Natural History of Ireland was published in 1856. Thompson was a member of all the notable societies of his native country, as well as of many of foreign nations. Although a man of no pre-eminence ability, his devotion to his peculiar subject, and his quick sagacity in detecting the more superficial characteristics of nature, rendered him eminent in the walk which he chose.