Memoir of the Late William Thompson, Esq.

Our author, born 2nd of November, 1805, was the eldest son of a Belfast merchant, then extensively engaged in the linen trade; and, being intended by his parents for the same business, he received such an education as was at the time considered suitable for commercial life. In 1821 he was apprenticed to a highly respectable firm in the linen business, the staple trade of the North of Ireland. The senior partner of that firm, himself a keen sportsman, has survived the subject of the present memoir, and is not unfrequently referred to in the volumes on « The Birds of Ire- land,» as an authority on their habits.