LINNEAX SOCIETY OF LONDON. 5 1 



Massee's work has left its mark on British mycology. He fol- 

 lowed up the work of Cooke, and has supplied the EngUsh student 

 with a series of volumes giving the most complete account of 

 the British fungus flora yet published. Coming into the field at a 

 time wlien the mit-roscope was beuig used much more largely both 

 by amateurs and scientists, most of his original work will be found 

 to be of a type very different from that of Cooke. Even in his 

 early days he was not afraid to discard old systems and fearlessly 

 to adopt microscopic characters for the differentiation of certain 

 difficult genera, and in many of his works his liking for the groups 

 of microscopic fungi is obvious. In this way lie forms a link 

 between the older mycologists and the modern school wlio have 

 had all the advantages of the modern methods of pure culture and 

 refined microscopic technique. Massee adopted himself consider- 

 ably, and in passing judgment on his work the date of his training 

 should be borne in mind. 



jN'o one was more fully alive to the importance of field-work 

 than Massee, and in his early days he was an enthusiastic collector. 

 He was largely iustrumental in founding the British Mycological 

 Society and was its first President. In later life attacks of 

 influenza, to which he was liable for many years, hindered his 

 enjoyment of fungus forays, though he made a point of always 

 attending the September meeting of the Mycological Committee 

 of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, of which he was President. 

 He received the Victoria Medal of Horticulture from the Royal 

 Horticultural Society in 1902. He was a Eellow of the Linneau 

 Society from 1895 to 1915. On his retirement from Kew he 

 reluctantly left the Society, but was elected an Associate the 

 following year. 



Massee was a remarkable man in many ways. His intuition 

 with regard to the alHnity of a fungus amounted almost to genius, 

 and this coupled with an unusually good memory gave him an 

 extraordinary wide knowledge of fungi. His artistic powers also 

 were quite exceptional. The originals of many of his drawings 

 were exceedingly beautiful, and the ease and rapidity with which 

 they were executed was astonishing. He had the power, too, of 

 recalling appearance, and could portray without the slightest 

 difficulty a whole series of fungi from memory. He was reserved, 

 yet quick and shrewd, and usually very outspoken. As a worker 

 he was energetic and industrious, and had withal a keen sense of 

 humour, and was greatly missed by his colleagues on his retire- 

 ment from the Herbarium in March, 1915. He died at Sevenoaks 

 on February 17, 1917, after a brief illness. [A. D. Cotton.] 



Elias Metchnikoff. — The work of the great Eussian zoologist 

 Elias Metchnikoff, who died in Paris on July 15, 1916, affords 

 one of the best examples of the immense benefit mankind may 

 derive from the most abstruse scientific researches. 



Metchnikoff was born at Ivanovka near Kharkoff in 1845. His 

 father was an officer in the Imperial Gruard, and his mother was of 



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