1888.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 71 



pardoned for referring to his own history, he would say that few 

 have had better opportunity of knowing Dr. Gray in this respect 

 than he himself. In 1857, at the instance of a friend he was led to 

 open a correspondence with Dr. Gray upon the constant differences 

 between the European and American forms of Sjniaea salicifolia. 

 Nothing could be kinder than the reply which urged him to continue 

 his observations, saying that former authors had made the American 

 form a distinct species under the name of S. carpinifolia and that 

 Dr. Gray jiiight probably adopt this name in the next edition of the 

 Manual. The subsequent appearance of Darwin's "Origin of Species" 

 so changed the hitherto prevailing idea of specific types that it is 

 no wonder that it did not appear in the next edition under a dis- 

 tinct name. But the encouragement given to the obscure young 

 man was not lost. It led to a closer observation of similar phenom- 

 ena, and the paper on the relative characters of American and Eu- 

 ropean species, which subsequently received the approval of Darwin, 

 Mivart and others, was the result of the encouragement given in that 

 letter. That and many subsequent papers were submitted to Dr. 

 Gray before publication, and not presented without his approval ; 

 and it was not till later, after he had caught up with the whole lit- 

 erature of the subject, that he ventured to stand alone without the 

 aid of his early friend and monitor. 



Prof. Meehan then spoke of his long and frequent correspondence 

 with Dr. Gray, growing out of his own editorial position. From 

 month to month Dr. Gray would send his criticisms upon his edito- 

 rial work. These were occasionally sharp and adverse, but always 

 judicious, encouraging and kind, and Mr. Meehan cited many in- 

 stances illustrative of this. 



It was characteristic of Dr. Gray to give the same attention to the 

 poorest and most obscure, as to the most prominent, if only he found 

 them to be earnest searchers for truth. It had been said that he was 

 hard to convince, but this was because he himself had taken so much 

 pains to reach the truth. Nothing but positive evidence would lead 

 him to set aside a conclusion at which he had arrived ; but when 

 once such evidence was produced, no one accepted it more readily 

 or gracefully, and hence he was even more merciless in judging 

 of his own work, than that of others. Of this readiness to re- 

 verse his own decisions, and do justice to others, Prof. Meehan gave 

 many pleasant instances. Few men could have a warmer heart 

 towards friends than Dr. Gray — but this did. not lead him to ig- 



