14 



management of the Zoological Society (of which he was many 

 years a vice-president), and had also been President of the 

 Entomological and Botanical Societies. He was also a Fellow of 

 the Royal, the Linnean, Royal Geographical and the Geological 

 Societies, and an honorary Doctor of Philosophy of the Uni- 

 versity of Munich for having formed " the largest zoological 

 collection in Europe." In 1851 he was appointed acting chair- 

 man of one of the juries of the Great Exhibition ; and he was a 

 juror of the educational section in the Exhibition of 1862. Dr. 

 Gray, in addition to his labours as a naturalist, always took an 

 active part in questions of sanitary and metropolitan improve- 

 ments, in public education, prison discipline, and especially in 

 the opening of museums, picture galleries, and gardens to the 

 public, both by writing and in evidence before the Parlia- 

 mentary committees and commissions. 



It only remains to add that Dr. Gray married in 1826 Mrs. 

 Maria Emma Gray, the widow of his cousin, a lady who 

 efficiently assisted him in all his studies, and that she herself 

 published, many years ago, a collection of "Figures of Molluscous 

 Animals for the use of Students." 



From the "Academy.'" 



Scarcely had Dr. Gray quitted the position which he so long 

 held at the British Museum before the melancholy news reaches 

 us that his active life has been brought to a close. It is indeed 

 but a few brief weeks since Dr. Giinther was appointed to the 

 Keepership of the Zoological Collections upon the resignation 

 of Dr. Gray, who had occupied this post since 1840. 



John Edward Gray, the son of Mr. S. F. Gray, of Walsall, 

 was born in 1800, and educated for the medical profession. 

 At the age of twenty-one he published his " Natural Arrange- 

 ment of British Plants," a work which has the merit of being 

 an early attempt to introduce the natural system to the notice 

 of British botanists. Three years later he entered the Natural 

 History Department of the British Museum, and rose in 1840 

 to the rank of Keeper. A fine series of catalogues of the 



