page_title: Mary Ball
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Ball / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Silhouette cutout of The Ball Family Irish Naturalists Robert, Anne, Bent and Mary From the 1830's, based on the women's clothing styles...
context_page_description: Mary Ball was an Irish naturalist and entomologist most noted for her studies of Odonata and for her discovery of the stridulation in aquatic bugs in the family Corixidae.
context_section_description: Mary Ball was born in 1812, the second daughter of Bob Stawell Ball and his wife Mary née Green. She was born near Cobh, County Cork, but shortly moved with the family to nearby Youghal, County Cork. Mary had three siblings who lived into adulthood: Robert, Bent (1806-1860), and Anne, a well-known algologist. The family was Protestant and "involved in trade".
  There is not much known about Mary's training, but as a middle-class family she certainly would have access to a microscope and the latest volumes of natural history and scientific classification of the times. It has been recorded that Robert started collecting specimens with his father at the age of five. It can be assumed that Mary would have participated as well. Robert encouraged Mary in her early insect studies, purchasing for her a copy of James Stephens' Systematic Catalogue of British insects, published in 1829. In this she detailed the insects in her growing collection.
caption: Left to right: Robert, Anne, Bent and Mary Ball
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