252 Biographical Notice of the late Dr. J. E. Gray. 
in 1819 he had joined the London Philosophical Society, 
which numbered the late Mr. Faraday among its members, 
and in 1820 he was a member of the Philosophical Society 
of London, a society established in 1810 under the patronage 
of the Duke of Sussex. 
The old Entomological Society of London, the successor of 
the Aurelian Society, established in 1806, at this time held 
its meetings at No. 87 Hatton Garden; and in 1822 Dr. Gray 
became a Fellow and Secretary of that Society, which was 
soon afterwards expanded into the Zoological Club of the 
Linnean Society. As the Fellowship of the Linnean Society 
was an essential qualification for being a member of the Zoolo- 
gical Club, John Edward Gray was excluded from it; for 
although he had been proposed as a Fellow of the Linnean 
Society by such men as Haworth, Vigors, J. F. Stephens, 
Joseph Goodall, Latham, Griffith, and Salisbury, he was 
rejected by a large majority in a very full meeting, on the 
16th of April, 1822. It is of course impossible now to ascer- 
tain the precise reasons for the rejection of a young naturalist 
who had already given evidence of no ordinary powers and 
attainments both im zoology and botany. Dr. Gray himself 
has suggested that his certificate, bearing “the names of at 
least four naturalists anxious to improve zoology and botany, 
may have frightened the regular ‘ Linneans,’ of whom Dr. 
Shaw may be considered a fair example. He proposed putting 
his heel on or, as some say, breaking with a hammer all shells 
not in the twelfth edition of Linneeus’s ‘ Systema Nature.’ 
Things not in Linneus ought not to exist.” Such views as 
these are undoubtedly very narrow ; but, supposing them to 
exist, the policy of preventing the opposite party from gaining 
an accession of strength in the person of the young candidate 
would be intelligible, and to a certain extent respectable. 
But the reason actually assigned for his rejection was paltry. 
He was accused of having insulted the President of the Society, 
Sir James Edward Smith, by quoting the ‘ English Botany’ 
as Sowerby’s, Sir James having been hired by Sowerby to 
write the text for his plates. 
We should not have dwelt so long upon this miserable 
history but for the circumstance that, whatever may have been 
the cause of his rejection, the fact itself certainly had a great 
influence upon Dr. Gray’s character. One can easily under- 
stand that the circumstance of being thus ignominiously 
rejected must have been a bitter disappointment to a young 
and enthusiastic naturalist such as Gray then was; and we 
cannot wonder that he placed himself in decided antagonism 
to those whom he thought his enemies in the matter, and thus 
acquired that combative habit of mind which undoubtedly 
