lv Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 
recorded the fact that “the very important results already achieved by 
Mr. Ward in Ceylon, in the domain of the higher botany, led the Senate and 
the Council to make this appointment.” In 1883, he was appointed Assistant 
Lecturer and Demonstrator in Botany, and, on the same testimony, 
“abundantly justified his election.” It was a peculiar pleasure to him to 
relieve the veteran Prof. Williamson by taking entire charge of Vegetable 
Physiology and Histology. His position was, in the same year, made secure 
by his election to a Fellowship at Christ’s College, and he married the 
eldest daughter of the late Francis Kingdon, of Exeter, who was a connection 
of Clifford the mathematician. 
The passion for research now completely possessed Ward and never left 
him for the rest of his life. He published papers which added much to our 
knowledge of the Saprolegnieze a group of fungi of aquatic habit, partly 
saprophytic and partly parasitic. It is interesting to note that he was 
particularly attracted by the mode in which the hyphe attack the tissues on 
which they prey. This was a matter on which he subsequently threw an 
entirely new light. He made the interesting discovery of an aquatic 
Myxomycete, such a mode of existence being hitherto unknown in the 
group, and worked out its life history. But his mind had now become ~ 
definitely fixed on the problems presented by plant diseases, and they 
remained the principal occupation of his life. In their widest sense these 
resolve themselves into a consideration of the mode in which one organism 
obtains its nutriment at the expense of another. This ranges from a 
complete destruction of the host by the parasite to a harmless and even 
advantageous symbiosis. He was thus naturally led to an exhaustive study 
of the literature of the Schizomycetes, and contributed an article on the 
group in 1886 to the ‘ Encyclopedia Britannica,’ which, for the time at any 
rate, gives the best account of it, certainly in English, and probably in 
any other language. When he supplemented this in 1902 by the article 
on Bacteriology, it was largely to give an account of his own important 
discoveries. In the earlier one, he had pointed out the difficulties of a 
natural classification of Schizomycetes due to their, pleomorphism, which 
Lankester had demonstrated in 1873. He returned to the subject in an 
article in the ‘ Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science’ in 1892. It may 
be noted that, in his British Association address at Toronto, he took 
occasion to put in their proper relation the work of Cohn and of his pupil 
Koch. | 
In 1885, the Regius Professorship of Botany at Glasgow was vacant by 
the transference of Prof. Balfour to Oxford. Ward was a candidate with 
the warm support of his fellow-botanists. It was thought that his Colonial 
services would weigh with the Government; but other influences were at 
work in favour of another candidate, whom, however, the University refused 
to accept. A deadlock ensued, which was only solved by the Government 
finally refusing to appoint either candidate. This was a great disappoint- 
ment to Ward, which was in some degree mitigated by his appointment 
