il Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 
a strange story and to ask my advice. He had received an anonymous 
letter, telling him that if he would enter at the University of Cambridge, he 
would find a sufficient sum of money to his credit at Mortlock’s Bank to pay 
his expenses. The acceptance of such a proposal involved a certain amount. 
of risk, but I advised him to take it. By Vimes’ advice he accordingly 
became a candidate for and secured an open scholarship at Christ’s College, 
where Vines himself was then a Fellow, and went into residence in October, 
1876. On November 20 following, Lucas, who had planned an expedition to 
Africa, died on board the s.s. “ Massowah” between Suakim and Jeddah 
at the early age of 25. He had broken down in health, and General Gordon 
would not allow him to proceed beyond Khartoum. He proved to have been 
Ward’s benefactor, and had made provision in his will for the continuance 
of help, which was as honourable to the recipient as to the giver. The action 
that Lucas took was no doubt a concession to Ward’s strong independence. 
That he took a deep interest in him is shown by a letter which he wrote to 
him from Cairo, November 28, 1875, when Ward was at Owens College: 
“Slow and sure wins the day. Work ten or even eleven hours a day. You 
can do that, if you keep regular hours, for an indefinite time. Always take 
at least seven hours’ sleep, for the more the work the more rest required.” 
Ward took full advantage of his opportunities at Cambridge, and attended 
the teaching of Sir Michael Foster in physiology and of Prof. F. M. Balfour 
in comparative anatomy. The sound and fundamental conceptions which he 
acquired from the former manifestly influenced his work throughout life. 
He took a first class in botany in the Natural Science Tripos in 1879. His 
first published paper was the result of work in the same year in the Jodrell 
Laboratory at Kew. In this, which was published in the ‘ Proceedings. 
of the Linnean Society,’ he seriously criticised and corrected that of Vesque 
on the embryo-sac of Phanerogams. 
As was customary with our young botanists, Ward went to Germany for a, 
short time, for purposes of study and to strengthen his knowledge of the 
language. He worked at Wurzburg with Sachs, whose lectures on the 
physiology of plants he afterwards translated in 1887. There he continued 
his study of the embryo-sac in Orchidew, as Sachs subsequently testified,. 
“zu meiner vollsten Zufriedenheit.” 
Before the end of the year Ward was appointed on the recommendation 
of Kew to proceed to Ceylon for two years as Government Cryptogamist to: 
investigate the leaf disease in coffee. The history of this malady is almost 
unique in vegetable pathology. A native fungus which had eluded scientific. 
observation, and must therefore have maintained an inconspicuous and 
limited existence on some native host-plant, found a wider opportunity 
on the Arabian coffee plant and fell upon it as a devastating scourge. It was. 
first detected in 1869 on a single estate; in 1873 there was probably none in 
the island entirely free from it. Mr. (since Sir Daniel) Morris had shown 
that the plants could be cleansed by dusting them with a mixture of sulphur 
and lime. But the remedy proved of no avail as the plants speedily became 
