32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



History ' in 1846, as a " Synopsis of British Eubi," a forerunner 

 of the ' British Eubi,' which came out in 1869. To this thorny 

 seb of plants Babington was partial to the end, and much of his 

 scientific correspondence was about them. 



An excellent County flora was his next book, his ' Plora of 

 Cambridgeshire,' which has stimulated historical research in 

 plant-records. His friend Professor Henslow, Professor of 

 Botany in Cambridge University, died in 1861, and Babington 

 was immediately appointed his successor. In this congenial 

 post the remainder of his life was spent, busy in the herbarium 

 and in his letter-writing on botanical points, till about five years 

 ago, when a severe illness seized him from which he never really 

 recovered. He was a professor of the old school, believing 

 chiefly in the knowledge of plants, and not in minuter study of 

 selected types. During the last few years of his life, Mr. Francis 

 Darwin was appointed 'Eeader in Botany,' with charge of 

 the laboratories. He quietly breathed his last in his house at 

 Brookside, Cambridge, on the day above mentioned. His her- 

 barium was left to the University. 



His election into the Eoyal Society dated from 1851 ; he was 

 an enthusiastic archaeologist ; and, combining both pursuits, he 

 was sometimes confounded with his cousin, the B,ev. Churchill 

 Babington, a member of his own College. 



The Society owes to Mrs. Babington the excellent and charac- 

 teristic portrait which hangs in our Library ; it was taken some 

 years siuce ; but it reminds those of us who knew the Professor 

 in years gone by more pleasingly of the departed than a later one 

 could do. 



Additional details of Professor Babington's career may be 

 obtained by referring to the sympathetic sketch of the late 

 botanist in the ' Journal of Botany ' for September 1895, written 

 by Mr. James Britten. 



Professoe Hen^ei Eenest Baillon was born at Calais, 30th 

 November, 1827, and was destined for the medical profession. 

 Early in his Parisian career he became acquainted with some 

 musical amateurs who met on Sundays to practice comjjositions 

 for stringed instruments. He soon began to devote the greater 

 part of his weekdays to practising his part for the Sunday concert, 

 and when he returned home for the following vacation the account 

 of himself which he gave his father was of his improvement 

 musically. The disappointment shown by his parent on his pro- 

 gress in an accomplishment which was not his aim in life, made a 

 deep impression on young Baillon. On his return to Paris he 

 locked up his violin in its case and threw the key from the 

 Pont-neuf into the Seine, and the event was almost forgotten 

 until many years afterwards, when the fiddle-case was brought 

 out in the course of some household arrangements. 



The determination thus shown not to disappoint his father's 



