74 THE VICTOKIAN NATURALIST. 



tive paper, and hoped that other ladies would follow her example 

 and share in the scientific work of the Club. 



2. By Mr. F. L. Billinghurst, communicated by Mr. T. S. 

 Hall, M.A., entitled, " Notes on the Fauna of the Castlemaine 

 District — Butterflies." 



The author pointed out the necessity and desirability of all 

 collectors recording their observations, as an aid to other workers 

 in the same fields, and as a means of working out the geographical 

 range of animals and plants. He then gave a list, with notes, of 

 the butterflies he had met with in the Castlemaine district, com- 

 prising some 23 species. 



NATURAL HISTORY NOTE. 



Mr. H. T. Tisdall, F.L.S., read a brief note on the occurrence 

 of a white substance, evidently thistledown, which had fallen like 

 snow at the Barwon River. 



LOUIS PASTEUR. 



Baron Sir F. von Mueller, K.C.M.G., who had been detained 

 by another engagement, then addressed the meeting with refer- 

 ence to the death of the great French scientist, Louis Pasteur, as 

 follows : — " It behoves us in a union like ours, when a great 

 leader in scientific thought has passed away, to offer our mournful 

 homage. Now it is Louis Pasteur, whose luminous career has 

 come to a close. As an original thinker, as a close investigator, 

 and as an operator of the most practical tendencies, he has 

 earned the admiration of the human universality, and has ' left 

 his footprints on the sands of time.' The light he shed on what 

 we might call the organized atoms must call forth the most 

 grateful recognition also within our own circle here, where the 

 individually vitalized cellules become so often objects of research. 

 Whether we consider these minutest of beings in their action on 

 the human and animal organisms, or in their relation to technical 

 industrial pursuits, mankind will ever remain under a deep 

 obligation to Pasteur. Well do the elder of us remember, how 

 he, nearly thirty years ago, unbound the spell, which paralyzed, 

 through the Nosema- and Botrytis-diseases, the great silk-industry 

 far beyond France, Baron Dumas drawing his illustrious 

 disciple into those lines of restorative measures, which Pasteur 

 independently laid out. But it was long before, that he whose 

 loss we now lament arose on the horizon of knowledge in 

 youthful brightness, as at the age of 23 he was called to a 

 prominent professorship, and at the age of 32 he was chosen to 

 organize, in the elevated position of dean, one of the greatest 

 science faculties in a land celebrated for its learning. At 36 he 

 commenced those memorable inquiries on fermentive germs, 

 which exercise such important bearing on one of the largest of 

 rural efforts, and will ever continue to do so. His star rose still 



