WARD, Richard Halsted, microscopist, born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, 17 June, 1837. He was graduated at Williams in 1858, and at the College of physicians and surgeons, New York city, in 1862, was assistant surgeon in the military hospital at Nashville, Tennessee, for a few months, resigned on account of failing health, and in 1863 established himself in Troy, New York He became interested while in college in botany, and in 1867 accepted the professorship of that science in Rensselaer polytechnie institute, while continuing his practice as a physician, and becoming in 1868 physician to the Marshall infirmary. He also delivered lectures on the use of the microscope, and from 1871 till 1883 conducted a department in the "American Naturalist" on microscopy, on which subject he has also given lectures in the Rensselaer institute. On botany he has been a frequent lecturer before scientific societies and institutions. He has invented an illuminating appliance for binocular microscopes and other improvements, and was active in organizing the national committee on micrometry. As an expert in microscopical examinations, he was one of the first to discriminate between different kinds of blood, and his testimony is sought in murder and forgery trials, and in connection with the purity of water-supply and adulterations of food and medicine. He has also been a cultivator of medical microscopy, and has published some original investigations. Dr. Ward is a member of microscopical societies of this country and Europe, was president of the American society of microscopists, and has been the manager of the American postal microscopical club since 1875. He has contributed to the periodicals that are devoted to his specialty, and was joint editor, with the Reverend Alpheus B. Hervey, of the American revision of the work of Julius W. Behrens on "The Microscope in Botany" (Boston, 1885).--His sister, Anna Lydia, author, born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, about 1850, was educated at Ripley female college, Poultney, Vermont She assisted in compiling a "Dictionary of Quotations" (New York, 1881), and has published " A Dictionary of Quotations from the Poets" (1883) : "Surf and Wave" (1883); and "Familiar Quotations from American Authors" in a "Library of Quotations" (4 vols., 1884). She is at present engaged on a " History of Waterbury, Connecticut," in association with Miss Sarah J. Pritchard.