pharmacy, and natural history. Familiar from an early age with the advanced views entertained by his father on the subject of systematic botany, Mr. G. R. Gray entered on the study of natural history under great advantages. So early as 1829 he contributed descriptions of new species to that part of Griffith's translation of Cuvier's Animal Kingdom which refers to birds. Ornithology he subsequently made a special study. In 1837 he commenced the publication of the "Genera of Birds, comprising their Generic characters: illustrated with figures by D. W. Mitchell," London, 3 vols. imp. 4to. This beautiful and elaborate work, completed in 1849, received the warmest commendation from naturalists in all parts of the globe, and has since been considered indispensable in every museum, where a large collection of birds require to be named and systematically arranged. It contains one hundred and eighty-six plain and one hundred and eighty-five coloured plates; and its price being no less than £31 10s., it is necessarily better known to those engaged in scientific pursuits than to the public at large. Since its publication Mr. Gray has taken a high place among living naturalists. He has contributed to the scientific journals and the transactions of learned societies a great variety of papers, calculated to sustain his well-earned reputation. The titles of these memoirs, which relate chiefly to birds and insects, nearly nine years ago filled a page and a half of the Bibliographia Zoologiæ of Agassiz. He prepared the ornithological catalogue of the birds in the British museum—a more important work than its title may at first appear to indicate; this catalogue not being a mere list of names, but embodying new views of classification, and containing remarks or notes of high scientific value.—G. B—n.
* GRAY, John Edward, Ph.D., F.R.S., a distinguished naturalist, the head of the natural history department in the British museum, is the elder brother of Mr. George Gray, the subject of the preceding memoir. He was born at Wallsall in Staffordshire in 1800. Educated in the scientific views of his father, he became at an early age connected with the British museum. The zoological department of this institution has long been under his charge; and it is chiefly owing to the ability and perseverance he has displayed in its management, that it has taken the foremost place among European collections. He has 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 commissions in 1835-36-41 and 1849, and published in the Blue Books of these years. Dr. Gray superintended the preparation of the various catalogues of the zoological specimens preserved in the museum, to the character of which as scientific works we adverted in speaking of his brother. Those referring to the echinoderms, molluscs, tortoises, cetacea, and ruminantia were exclusively written by Dr. Gray. Amidst his labours at the museum, he has found time to prepare a long series of treatises and memoirs on subjects of natural history, the simple list of which filled in 1852 twenty pages of the Bibliographia Zoologiæ. 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." It was followed by the "Zoological Miscellany," a similar work, appearing at intervals between 1831 and 1845. Mr. Gray was joint-editor with Dr. John Richardson of the zoological part of the "Voyages of the Erebus and Terror" 1839-43. He wrote also the first part of the zoological section of the "Voyage of H.M. ship Sulphur" 1843-45. Devoting his attention not only to zoology but to botany, he has acquired a very extensive acquaintance with the algæ and fungi, and has written valuable papers on these organisms. Of the four hundred papers which he had written in 1852, a small number relate to sponges, star-fishes, and other radiate animals. The molluscs are treated of more copiously, upwards of one hundred papers being devoted specially to them; among which we may mention memoirs "On the Systematic Arrangement of the Molluscous Animals;" "On Perforations made by Patella and Pholas" (Proceedings of Zoological Society, vol. v.); On the Byssus of Unio" (Annals of Nat. Hist., 1840); and "On the Habits of Snails" (Annals of Nat. Hist., 1839). The structure and classification of reptiles have been to Dr. Gray subjects of careful and laborious research; and it is perhaps in this department of natural science that he has won his chief claims to distinction. For Griffith's Cuvier he wrote a "Synopsis of the Class Reptilia;" this treatise being followed by a paper "On a New Arrangement of Reptiles," published in the first volume of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. To the mammalia Dr. Gray has devoted much attention, he having prepared various papers referring to the cetacea, ruminantia, and quadrumana, to which may be added one of a more general character, entitled a "Description of some Genera and Fifty unrecorded Species of Mammals," published in the tenth volume of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. Dr. Gray is still actively engaged as keeper of the department of zoology at the British museum. The promptitude with which he seizes on the essential points of resemblance and difference between the various types of animals, and the unwearied zeal in the pursuits to which he has devoted his life, are well known to all who have taken part in the discussions of the Zoological Society. In those of his works which refer to the mollusca, Dr. Gray has been efficiently assisted by his accomplished wife, who many years ago published a collection of "Figures of Molluscous Animals for the use of Students."—G. B—n.
GRAY, Robert, D.D., an eminent prelate of the Church of England, was born in London in 1762, and was educated at Eton and St. Mary Hall, Oxford. Having entered into orders, he obtained successively the vicarage of Farringdon in Berkshire, and the rectory of Craike in Yorkshire; and in 1805 he succeeded the celebrated Dr. Paley in the valuable living of Bishop Wearmouth, the duties of which he continued to discharge until his elevation to the see of Bristol in 1827. His first literary production was his "Key to the Old Testament and Apocrypha," designed as a companion to Bishop Percy's Key to the New Testament. This work, published in 1790, at once established his reputation, and was adopted as a class-book at both the universities. He published a variety of other works, chiefly on the evidences of christianity and the principles of the reformation. Dr. Gray was distinguished by his zeal for the extension of education and the relief of the poor, and took an active part in the house of peers in defending the rights and privileges of the Church of England. During the riots at Bristol in October, 1831, when his palace was burned by an enraged mob, he displayed unusual fortitude and presence of mind. He died in September, 1834.—G. BL.
GRAY, Stephen, a distinguished electrician, was born in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and died in London on the 15th February, 1736. Of his personal history nothing is known except that he was a pensioner of the Charter-house, and fellow of the Royal Society. The papers which he communicated to the latter institution extend from the year 1696 to the date of his death; but none of them were of much importance until he commenced his electrical investigations about the year 1720. In these he was singularly successful, and indeed his discoveries were so important, that he is justly described as having contributed in a great measure to establish the science of electricity upon a sure foundation. This science, before he commenced his researches, remained very nearly in the state in which it had been left by William Gilbert, embracing little more than the knowledge of the fact that certain bodies could be excited by friction, so as to attract other bodies. It was reserved for Mr. Gray to accumulate more facts, and to commence the important work of classification. Having found that almost all bodies became electrical when rubbed with the hand, but that metals appeared to be incapable of exhibiting this property, be divided all the substances in nature into two classes, namely, electrics, or those which can be excited by friction; and non-electrics, or those which cannot be so excited. He afterwards found that the class of electrizable bodies were capable of communicating their electricity to the class which he termed non-electrics, and that the electricity so communicated was capable, under certain conditions, of propagating itself to a distance. His discoveries embraced the following facts:—First, the communication; second, the transmission or conduction; and third, the insulation of electricity; facts of which the practical application is now to be seen in the wires of the electric telegraph. "It is remarkable," says the late Dr. Thomson in his History of the Royal Society, "that no biographical memoirs remain of a man to whom electricity lies under such obligations; but from some observations made by Desaguliers, it appears that his character was very particular, and by no means amiable."—G. BL.
GRAY, Thomas, an accomplished scholar and a poet of cele-
