Mary Ball

From Freepedia

Mary Ball ( 1812 - 1892) was an Irish naturalist and entomologist most noted for her studies of Odonata and for her discovery of the curious phenomenon of stridulation in underwater bugs (Corixidae) This was communicated to the British Association meeting in Cambridge, England in June 1845 by her brother Robert and was later communicated in three notes.Ball, R. (1845) On the sounds produced by the Notonectidae under water Annals and Magazine of Natural History 16:129.Ball, R. (1846a) On the noises produced by one of the Notonectidae Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.Notices and abstracts of communicationsCambridge Meeting, June 1845:64-65.Ball, R. (1846) Corixa striata, Curtis. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 17:135-136.Mary is not mentioned by name in these publications but it is evident that the work is solely hers. Mary Ball is also acknowledged as collecting specimens of the migratory locust figured in John Curtis' British Entomology- Folio 608 Locusta christii dated August 1, 1836 "In the cabinets of Miss Ball and the author"- "Another specimen, captured last September at Ardmore in the county of Waterford by Miss M. Ball has been kindly transmitted to me for my inspection by Mr Robert Ball of Dublin. It is of the same sex as the one figured but the elytra are much more spotted". Her Odonata were studied by the Belgian entomologist Michel Edmond de Selys-Longchamps After the successive deaths of her father in 1841, her mentor William Thompson in 1852 and her brother Robert in 1857 Mary seems to have given up entomology and taken to fern gardening (then a craze). A success too: "If Aunt Mary had planted a parasol it would have grown into an umbrella" one of her nephews remarked.