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born at Walsall, in Staffordshire, in the year 1800. He was- 

 educated with the view of following the medical profession, 

 and studied under his father at St. Bartholomew's and other 

 hospitals. He early showed a taste for natural history. In 

 1817, on the lecturer on botany at the Borough School of 

 Medicine being unable to continue the course, Dr. Gray was 

 elected by the class to take up the subject, and he continued 

 to lecture for some years on that subject. In 1821 he published 

 his first important work on the " Natural Arrangement of 

 British Plants ; " this was the first work in the English 

 language on the natural method, which has now become 

 almost universally adopted. He also about this time became 

 connected with the British Museum, and the zoological depart- 

 ment of this institution continued under his charge from 1840, 

 down to his recent retirement through failing health. It was 

 chiefly owing to the ability and perseverance he displayed in 

 its management that the British Museum has taken the fore- 

 most rank among European collections. He expended much 

 care and thought upon his scheme for the improvement of our 

 great national galleries of natural history. His views on the 

 mode in which museums should be managed are explained in 

 a paper on this subject contributed to the fifth volume of the 

 Analyst, and in his evidence regarding the collections of the 

 British Museum given before various Parliamentary com- 

 missions between the years 1836 and 1849. Dr. Gray super- 

 intended the preparation of the various catalogues of the 

 zoological specimens preserved in the British Museum, and 

 those referring to the echinoderms, molluscs, tortoises, cetacea, 

 and ruminantia were exclusively written by Dr. Gray. Amidst 

 his labours at the Museum he found time to prepare a long 

 series of treatises and memoirs on subjects of natural history, 

 the simple list of which in 1852 filled twenty pages of the 

 "Bibliographia Zoologize." In 1828 he published the first part 

 of a work entitled " Spicilegia Zoologica, or original Figures 

 and short Systematic Descriptions of new and unfigured 

 Animals." This was followed by the " Zoological Miscellan}^" 



