140 In Memoriam : George Massee, F.L.S., V.M.H. 



He was a prolific writer, being the author of over 250 books 

 and papers. He worked with rapidity, and had a very good 

 memory. One of his first papers, on woodpeckers, written 

 when he was seventeen years of age, was published in The 

 Intellectual Observer. 



An excellent account of Mr. Massee, in the ' Notable 

 Personalities ' series, appears in The Agricultural Economist 

 for July, 1913, from which we take the liberty of quoting the 

 following : — 



' Born at Scampston, a hamlet in East Yorkshire, in 1850, 

 George Edward Massee spent his youthful days on his father's 

 farm. It was at this village where, to use his own words, 

 " they attempted to educate me at a private school, but failed." 

 It was intended that he should follow in his father's footsteps 

 and be a farmer, so that on leaving school we see the youthful 

 botanist performing the duties of ploughing, sheep washing, 

 threshing, milking, and the like. It is in this practical routine 

 work on the farm that Mr. Massee attributes a great deal of 

 the success that he achieved in plant pathology. Many of the 

 so-called plant diseases are due to cultural defects. As a 

 farmer's son Mr. Massee is able to give practical advice, and 

 in this respect he has the advantage over the man of purely 

 academic training.' 



' But as a young man George Massee had ambitions in life 

 other than that of being a farmer. He had a great liking for 

 drawing and Nature study. So it was that he was sent to the 

 York School of Art, where he was fortunate in gaining the 

 national medal of the year for drawing flowers from Nature. 

 At the same time he studied chemistry and physics. At this 

 time he was taken in hand by his relative, Dr. Spruce, botanist 

 and traveller, and when not ploughing or working in the sheep- 

 fold he worked hard at botany. Massee's gift of drawing from 

 Nature stood him in good stead, and the illustrations of Dr. 

 Spruce's classical work on Hepatics are mostly his work. It 

 was at Dr. Spruce's suggestion that Mr. Massee went to the 

 West Indies and South America to study plants and collect 

 Orchids. He sent home Oncidium macranihum, the large 

 golden-yellow flowered species, and one of the most handsome 

 Orchids in cultivation, also N anodes Medusa-. (Medusa's), 

 an Orchid with lurid purple and deeply fringed flowers that 

 give it a most sinister appearance. The Andes, notably the 

 eastern slopes and the great Brazilian Plain are, in Mr. Massee's 

 opinion, far less known than darkest Africa, and from a 

 botanical and zoological point of view there is no corner of the 

 world that offers such a wide field to the explorer and collector. 

 Among his many exciting experiences on this expedition were 

 earthquakes.' 



' Being an only son, his mother prevailed upon him to 



Naturalist, 



