4466 THE ZooLocGisT—May, 1875. 
Obituary Notice of the late 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 in- 
clemency of an English spring on Sunday, the 7th of the present month 
(March), having just completed his seventy-fifth 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 recep- 
tion of the work was not altogether favourable, for at that time there was a 
very prevalent feeling, especially in the Linnean Society, against the intro- 
duction into the science of Botany of any other than the sexual and numerical 
classification promulgated by Linneus. It was probably under these circum- 
stances 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 obtaining 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 from Parliamentary grants, he did not hesitate to apply 
his own income to the acquisition of a specimen or a collection which he 
considered it important that the nation should possess. Indeed the growth 
of the collection under so liberal a régime outran the means of accommoda- 
tion, and the crowded state of the shelves soon tended in some degree to 
preclude the careful examination of the multitudinous objects assembled. 
The task of describing and cataloghing these vast collections followed 
as a matter of course. This was a most Herculean labour, and one that 
could not be accomplished single-handed. Dr. Gray therefore engaged the 
assistance and co-operation of the most advanced zoologists in every depart- 
ment of the Science. Thus, through his instrumentality, we have eight 
catalogues of sucklers, three of sucklers and birds together, nine of birds, 
sia of reptiles, and twelve of fishes. It is, however, in Entomology that 
he has rendered the greatest service to Science, having issued thirteen 
catalogues of Coleoptera, jive of Orthoptera, five of Neuroptera, ten of 
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