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. In October, however, having given up all idea of making painting his profession, he returned home; and in the following month he matriculated as a student of medicine in the university of Edinburgh. His vacation in 1832 he spent in diligent work on the natural history of the Isle of Man. In 1833 he made a tour in Norway, the botanical results of which were published in Loudon's _Magazine of Natural History_ for 1835-1836. In the summer of 1834 he devoted much time to dredging in the Irish Sea; and in the succeeding year he travelled in France, Switzerland and Germany. 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. The winter of 1836-1837 found him at Paris, where he attended the lectures at the Jardin des Plantes on natural history, comparative anatomy, geology and mineralogy. Leaving Paris in April 1837, he went to Algiers, and there obtained materials for a paper on land and freshwater Mollusca, published in the _Annals of Natural History_, vol. ii. p. 250. In the autumn of the same year he registered at Edinburgh as a student of literature; and in 1838 appeared his first volume, _Malacologia Monensis_, a synopsis of the species of Manx Mollusca. During the summer of 1838 he visited Styria and Carniola, and made extensive botanical collections. In the following autumn he read before the British Association at Newcastle a paper on the distribution of terrestrial Pulmonifera in Europe, and was commissioned to prepare a similar report with reference to the British Isles. In 1841 was published his _History of British Star-fishes_, embodying extensive observations and containing 120 illustrations, inclusive of humorous tail-pieces, all designed by the author. On the 17th of April of the same year Forbes, accompanied by his friend William Thompson, joined at Malta H.M. surveying ship "Beacon," to which he had been appointed naturalist by her commander Captain Graves. From that date until October 1842 he was employed in investigating the botany, zoology and geology of the Mediterranean region. The results of these researches were made known in his "Report on the Mollusca and Radiata of the Aegean Sea, presented to the British Association in 1843," and in _Travels in Lycia_, published in conjunction with Lieut.