OBITUARY NOTICES, 
Benjamin Carrington, M.D., M.R.C.S., F.R.S.E., Corr. Mem, 
Linn. Soc., N.S.W . ; Corr, Mem, R.S. Tasm. By William 
Henry Pearson, KnutsforcL 
(Read December 16, 1895.} 
Dr Carrington was born on January 18th, 1827, at Lincoln, and 
received liis early education in the neighbourhood ; afterwards he 
was articled at Liverpool to Dr M‘Nicoll, with whom he lived for 
some years. 
Dr M‘Nicoll was an enthusiastic naturalist and a great lover of 
poetry ; under his influence probably was created or developed the 
love of natural history which the subject of our memoir was famed 
for. From Liverpool he proceeded to Edinburgh University. Whilst 
studying there he wrote a monograph of the British Grasses, and illus- 
trated it with a set of specimens, with dissections of the minuter 
organs so beautifully and accurately prepared that they won for him 
the admiration of the leading botanists of the University. Here he 
made the acquaintance of Greville, Hooker, and Balfour, and no doubt 
liis life’s devotion to cryptogamic botany was influenced originally 
by Greville and Hooker. For the former he had the most profound 
admiration. 
He was a thorough naturalist. There was no object in nature 
but excited his curiosity and attention : the more minute, the more 
careful. For some time lie practised at Southport. Whilst there the 
annelids occupied his attention ; and a paper on the Southport species, 
read before the British Association at one of its meetings, shows 
the intimate knowledge he had of them. He contributed papers to 
various magazines, and assisted specialists in this branch of natural 
history, and one species was, I believe, named in his honour. He 
had an intimate acquaintance with the British Flowering Plants, 
