THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 93 



correspondence and exchange, to correspond directly with 

 Mr. Mann, without the intervention or assistance of any third 

 person. — Edward Neivman.~\ 



Death of Dr. Gray. — John Edward Gray, for fifty years 

 an active officer of the Zoological Department of the British 

 Museum, from which Institution he retired only in last 

 December, succumbed to the inclemenc}' of an English spring 

 on Sunday the 7th of the present month (March) having just 

 completed his seventy-fiflh year. He was the son of Samuel 

 Frederick Gray, who acquired considerable notoriety as a 

 botanist from his having been the first to introduce Jussieu's 

 classification of plants into this country, in a work intituled 

 "The Natural Arrangement of British Plants," Dr. Gray 

 himself strongly advocating the new system. The reception 

 of the work was not altogether favourable, for at that time 

 there was a very prevalent feeling, especially in the Linnean 

 Society, against the introduction into the Science of Botany 

 of any other than the sexual and numerical classification 

 promulgated by Linneus. It was probably under these 

 circumstances that Dr. Gray turned his attention more 

 exclusively to Zoology, and in 1824, through the influence 

 of the late John George Children, he was appointed an 

 assistant in the Zoological Department of the British Museum ; 

 and in 1840, on the retirement of Mr. Children, he succeeded 

 to the post of Keeper of the Zoological collection to that 

 establishment. 



Few naturalists now living will recollect the meagre state of 

 this collection when Dr. Gray's services were first acquired; 

 but those who, like myself, can look thus far back into the 

 past, will bear willing testimony to the vast improvements 

 which took place under his auspices : his labours were 

 energetic and unremitting, and he eventually succeeded 

 in o-btaining for our national collection a reputation second 

 to none in Europe. And here it must be observed that this 

 eminent success is not to be attributed solely to Dr. Gray's 

 incessant zeal in advocating the purchase by the trustees of 

 collections made by our fellow-countrymen and others in all parts 

 of the world : seeing that whenever he experienced a difficulty 

 in obtaining the necessary supplies irom Parliamentary grants, 



