lOTANICAL NEWS. 127 



John Edward Gray, late keeper of zoology in the British Museum, 

 died at his residence there on March 7th, and was interred in Lewisham 

 Church-yard on March 13th. He was born 12th February, 1800, at 

 Walsall, Staffordshire, being the second son of S. F. Gray, the author 

 of the *' Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia," and grandson of the Gray 

 who translated the ** Philosophia Botanica," for his friend Mr. Lee, 

 by which Linnseus's works were first introduced to England. He 

 early formed a strong liking for natural science, and at first 

 followed chiefly Botany ; in 1817 he gave lectures on that science. In 

 1818 he came to London and studied medicine; an introduction to 

 Sir Joseph Banks in this year, who gave him access to his liJirary, 

 enabled him to prepare the papers on the Annual Progress of Botany, 

 which appeared in Thompson's *' Annals of Philosophy," and the sys- 

 tematic part of the "Natural Arrangement of British Plants," pub- 

 lished in 2 vols, under the name of his father in 1821. The history of 

 this work, and the rejection from the Linnean Society of the author of a 

 book opposed to the sexual system, has been given by Dr. Gray him- 

 self in this Journal (1866, p. 297; 1872, p. 374). In the Banksian 

 library Gray met Mr. R. A. Salisbury, who assisted him in the prepa- 

 ration of the book just mentioned and offered to leave to him his library 

 and fortune if he would devote himself to botany and edit any MSS. 

 Salisbury might leave unprinted at his death. This offer was at once 

 declined. So lately as 1866, nearly forty years after Salisbury's death, 

 Dr. Gray printed a fragment of the " Genera Plantarum," from the 

 MSS. of that careful botanist. When the old Botanical Society of 

 London, which did so much to further the study of British plants, 

 was formed in 1836, Dr. Gray, was elected its president, as being the 

 introducer of the Natural System into English botany. Dr. Gray 

 entered the Museum under the late Mr. Children, and soon 

 devoted himself to zoology almost entirely. It is unnecessary 

 here to dwell upon the immense amount of work he did in that 

 department of science, or of the services he rendered to the Museum 

 during the fifty years of his connection with it, but he still 

 found time to attend to Algae, and besides several papers in this 

 Journal and the "Annals and Magazine of Natural History," upon 

 new forms, he published in 1865 a small, but very useful, "Hand- 

 book of British Waterweeds," in which Mrs. Gray, who is an accom- 

 plished algologist, greatly assisted him. It was only in December 

 last that Dr. Gray resigned his post in the Museum, and he 

 was preparing to remove from his official house to one in the neigh- 

 bourhood at the time of his death. 



With very great regret we have received the sad intelligence of 

 the death, in his fiftieth year, of Daniel Hanbury, which occurred 

 on 24th of March, at his residence on Clapham Common, from enteric 

 fever. It is but two months since we noticed in these pages the 

 masterly volume on the " History of Drugs," which owed its excellence 

 largely to his erudition and perseverance in research ; now that the 

 amiable and accomplished author has passed away, we are thankful to 

 know he has left a worthy literary monument, embodying so consider- 

 able a portion of his investigations. Mr. Hanbury was a partner in 

 the well-known firm of Allen and Hanburys, Plough Court, for more 



