BALFOUR, FRANCIS MAITLAND (1851-1882), Brit ish biologist, younger brother of A. J. Balfour (first earl), was born in Edinburgh. Educated at Harrow and at Trinity college, Cambridge, where' he took the second place in the natural science tripos of Dec. 1873, he was selected to occupy one of the two seats allocated to the University of Cambridge at the Naples zoological station. The fruits of his research there appeared in a series of papers (published as a monograph in 1878) on the Elasmobranch fishes, which threw new light on the development of several organs in the Vertebrates, in particular of the uro genital and nervous systems. His next work was a large treatise, Comparative Embryology, in two volumes; the first, published in 1880, dealing with the Invertebrates, and the second (1881) with the Vertebrates. In 1882 Cambridge University instituted a pro fessorship of animal morphology for him. But he perished, prob ably on July 19, 1882, in attempting the ascent of the Aiguille Blanche, Mont Blanc, at that time unsealed. Besides being a brilliant morphologist, Balfour was an accomplished naturalist.