THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 57 



the second year of its existence, 1 88 1-2, at which time he 

 was head teacher of the State school at Walhalla, North 

 Gippsland. Paying early attention to botany, at the third 

 conversazione of the Club, in April, 1883, he exhibited a series 

 of water-colour drawings of the wild flowers of his district, the 

 results of several years' work, and in September of the same year 

 contributed his first paper, entitled " A Botanical Excursion in 

 North Gippsland," which apparently was not published, being 

 before the establishment of the Victorian JVataralist. Having 

 to a great extent exhausted the phanerogams of the district, he 

 was induced by Baron von Mueller to turn his attention to the 

 cryptogams, with the result that he became an excellent authority 

 on fungi, &c., and at the meeting of the Club, in February, 1885, 

 contributed a paper entitled " The Fungi of Mt. Baw Baw," m 

 which he described some twelve species of the genus Agaricus, of 

 which he also exhibited water-colour drawings of his own ex- 

 ecution. In November of the same year he contributed a further 

 paper on the fungi of North Gippsland, in which he made some 

 remarks regarding the fungus then known as Mylitta auslralis, 

 " Native Bread," which have since become historical, and which 

 he repeated and amplified in May of last year ( Victorian 

 Nalttralist, xxi., p. 56). This was destined to be his last con- 

 tribution to our proceedings, though present at several subsequent 

 meetings. During the interval of nearly twenty-one years between 

 his first and last paper, and more especially after his promotion 

 to the Albert Park school in 1887, he contributed numerous 

 papers to the meetings of the Club, all relating more or less to 

 botany, either as bearing on a particular branch or descriptive of 

 trips or excursions in search of specimens. He was ever willing 

 to lead an excursion or act as demonstrator at a practical meeting 

 when appealed to by the committee, besides which he took his 

 share in the management of the Club, serving for two years as 

 vice-president, the same period as president (1893-5), and for six 

 years as member of committee. His last act for the benefit of 

 the Club was to take charge of the first excursion for juniors at 

 Sandringham, in October last, when by his clear and simple 

 remarks about the specimens gathered he quite endeared himself 

 to many of the young people present. In addition to his know- 

 ledge of our phanerogamic and cryptoganic plants Mr. Tisdall 

 was, at tlie time of his death, perhaps our best authority on 

 marine Algae, and in this department alone will be greatly missed. 

 Besides his work for the Field Naturalists' Club he was ever 

 ready to assist organizations of a kindred nature, and delivered 

 several lectures before the Geelong Field Naturalists' Club. He 

 contributed an article on the flora of Walhalla to the Mining 

 Department's report on that goldfield (1902), as also some 

 useful papers to the meetings of the Australasian Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, which included a list of the marine 



