xliv PEOCEEDIlfGS Or THE 



■which first made known the labours of the great Swedish naturalist 

 to English readers. Dr. Grray may thus be regarded as belonging 

 to a family in which natural-history tastes were hereditary. 



According to his own account he was a weakly and ailing child, 

 confined to his chair for eight months in the year, and never eating 

 animal food. At a very early age he says he began the world, 

 to provide for himself and help his family. He was originally 

 intended for the profession of medicine ; but his studies were very 

 early turned specially to natural history, the first overt indication of 

 which was a book published in the father's name, but of which 

 the substance was furnished by the son. This book deserved a 

 better fate. It met with a most unworthy reception at the 

 hands of some of the leading botanists of the day, and their oppo- 

 sition was strong enough to mar the success of a book which, 

 had it had fair play, would have constituted really an epoch in 

 the history of botany in this country. As it was, its merits were 

 recognized only after the lapse of time, when much that it contained 

 had been published elsewhere, and when many of the crudities 

 of a young and inexperienced author had necessarily become more 

 apparent by the progress of science in the interval. In 1819 Dr. 

 Grray had joined the London Philosophical Society, which num- 

 bered the late Mr. Faraday among its members, and in 1820 he 

 was a member of the Philosophical Society of London, a Society 

 established in 1810 under the patronage of the Duke of Sussex. 



The old Entomological Society of London, the successor of the 

 Aurelian Society, established in 1806, at this time held its meet- 

 ings at No. 87 Hatton Garden ; and in 1822 Dr. Gray became a 

 Eellow and Secretary of that Society, which was soon afterwards 

 expanded into the Zoological Club of the Linnean Society. As 

 the Eellowship of the Linnean Society was an essential qualifica- 

 tion for being a Member of the Zoological Club, John Edward 

 Gray was excluded from it ; for although he had been proposed 

 as a Eellow of the Linnean Society by such men as Haworth, 

 Vigors, J. E. Stephens, Joseph Goodall, Latham, Griffith, and 

 Salisbury, he was rejected by a large majority in a very full 

 Meeting on the 16th of April, 1822. The reasons for the rejec- 

 tion of a young naturalist who had already given evidence of no 

 ordinary powers and attainments both in zoology and botany can- 

 not now be precisely ascertained ; but the reason actually assigned 

 for his rej ection is paltry. He was accused of having insulted the 

 Pi'esident of the Society, Sir James Edward Smith, by quoting the 



