112 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST, [Vol. XXV, 



Civil Engineer, of Queen-street, Melbourne, bon. sec. Royal 

 Society of Victoria in 1865, member of Council for some years 

 previously, and a frequent contributor of papers to its journal. 



Richardson, John ( ). 



Collector of natural bistory specimens in Mitchell's expedition 

 in New South Wales and "Australia Felix" in 1836. See 5. 



Robertson, John George (1803-1862). 



There is a letter from this worthy to Lieut. -Governor Latrobe, 

 dated Waiido Vale, 26th September, 1853, giving an autobio- 

 graphical account of himself. He arrived in Van Diemen's Land 

 in 1 83 1 and went to Portland Bay in February, 1840. See 

 •' Letters from Victorian Pioneers," edited by T. F. Bride (pub- 

 lished by Trustees of the Public Library, Melbourne, 1898). 

 Governor Latrobe was a guest at Wando Vale on more than one 

 occasion, as " he and Mr. Robertson had similar tastes in botany." 



He was born at Glasgow, 15th October, 1803, and died at 

 Baronald, Lanark, Scotland, in 1862. He was "botanist and 

 naturalist with an Indian expedition for two years before 183 1 " 

 (Mr. William Moodie, in a letter to me). He was long engaged 

 in pastoral pursuits, and was at one time owner of Wando Vale 

 station, near Casterton, Victoria. He was in Tasmania for nine 

 years, during the last seven of which he managed Formosa Farm 

 for Mr. R. W. Lawrence, the botanist, who died in 1833. He 

 arrived at Portland Bay in 1840, following the Hentys, bringing 

 stock, &:c., valued at about ^'3,000. 



He sent his dried plants to Sir \Villiam Hooker, but they were 

 acquired just before the foundation of the oflicial herbarium at 

 Kew, and Mr. Hemsley tells me there is no formal record of the 

 extent of the collection. Mr. William Moodie says : — " Before 

 my uncle left for the old country I helped him to pack 4,000 

 botanical specimens which he had collected at Wando Vale and 

 elsewhere, and which he presented to Kew." I have a number of 

 specimens collected by Mr. Robertson at Wando Vale, Rivoli 

 Bay, and Portland, and it is very likely some are in the National 

 Herbarium, Melbourne, although the date of his leaving the colony 

 was about the time that Mueller founded the National Herbarium 

 of Melbourne. He is referred to by Hooker in 2. 



He was a regular correspondent of Ronald Gunn, and 1 have a 

 " List of Plants received from Mr. J. G. Robertson " in Gunn's 

 neat handwriting. All the plants are numbered. There are ten 

 and a half closely written pages, with critical notes. 



I have also a " List of Plants of Van Diemen's Land " in 

 Robertson's handwriting, three pages foolscap, double column. 

 Also a long list of plants supplied to his order by Mr. George Fry, 

 nurseryman, of Launceston, dated 25th May, 1846, showing that 



