Sir Edwin Ray Lankester Sir Edwin Ray Lankester, the distinguished
zoologist, who has died at the age of 82, put the public deeply in his debt by his popular but scholarly elucidations of scientific subjects. As a young man he was a disciple of Huxley, and his lectures, when he became Professor of Zoology at University College, London, quickly and deservedly became famous. He was awarded a medal of the Royal Society in 1885, and Huxley, in a eulogy of his work, said that he had never allowed speculation to become his master instead of his servant—a tribute which was too seldom earned in the eighties. It was true of Lankester that he inspired all his pupils with his own extreme care and industry in their proper business of research. In 1890 he became Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Oxford, and in 1892 Director of the Natural History Museum, Kensington. His quick and litigious temper brought him into frequent conflict with the authorities under whom he held office, but it may be that if he had had a more "official "mind his talents would never have been set so free as they were during his retirement to instruct a wide public.
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