1886-87.] Robert Gray. 15 



logical studies. Perhaps a too scrupulous regard for special 

 excellencies in a scientific communication prevented his 

 display of general botanical knowledge. 



The helping of distressed literary and scientific men 

 occupied much of Mr Gray's leisure. 



William Williamson Newbould, whose lithe spare form 

 was so long weU known in the reading room, or the old 

 Botanical department of the British Museum, died on 16th 

 April 1886, from pneumonia incited by a cab accident in the 

 streets of London. He was born at Sheffield in 1819. Mr 

 Newbould was perhaps the last of the old species school of 

 British botanists, with which the early w^ork of our Society 

 was associated. A B.A. of Cambridge in 1842, first curate, 

 and then priest in 1845, Mr iSTewbould shortly after vacated 

 holy orders, becoming for thirty years a diligent student of 

 Botany at his London headquarters, his life there being varied 

 with occasional country trips, and during that period he was 

 consulted by almost every compiler of local British Floras. 

 A pupil of Prof. Henslow's at Cambridge, he there also began 

 his life-long friendship wdth C. C. Babington, then ten years 

 his senior. It was through his influence he joined our ranks 

 in 1841. The two botanists made many joint excursions, 

 besides those to Scotland. During the first of these, 

 in 1845, he was invalided under the care of the late Prof. 

 Goodsir at Largo Manse, owing to a coach accident. H. C. 

 Watson repeatedly acknowledges Newbould's aid in the 

 prefaces to his topographical botanic treatises; ISTewbould, 

 on the other hand, highly valued AVatson's w^ork, though he 

 attached more influence to river basins in the topographic 

 distribution of plants than his friend did. Dr Boswell has 

 also acknowledged his deep obligations to Newbould, as 

 editor of the third edition of Encjlish Botany. But I must 

 refer the reader for further details to the source whence 

 many of these have been obtained, viz., Mr Britten's ad- 

 mirable biography of Mr ISTewbould {Jow\ Botany, No. 282, 

 June 1886, vol. xxiv. pp. 161-177). 



I cannot omit to quote the following physiognomic sketch : 

 — " The sliQ-ht bent figure, frail to attenuation with hardness 

 of study and poverty of living ; the bald head, its scanty fringe 

 of hair, grizzled like the beard, which all but hid the nervous 



