The South Australian Naturalist. ^7 



niovemeiit is quite silent. Other birds mentioned wei'v- tlie 

 satin bower bird, crimson parrot, rose-breasted robin, silver 

 blue Avren, etc. Tlie lecture v\"as illustrated by a beautiful set 

 of views shown through the episcope. 



THE FOUNDER OF SOUTH AUSTRALIAN BOTANY, 



ROBERT BROWN. 



By B. S. Roach. 



Readers of "The South Australian Naturalist'' may be 

 interested in perusing a brief account dealing with men who 

 have taken a prominent part in Avorking out the Botany of 

 South Australia. We shall begin with Robert Brown, who was 

 not only the first botanist to visit our shores, but who bears one 

 of the most illustrious names in the long annals of that im- 

 portant science. The great Humboldt referred to him as 

 "Botanicorum facile princeps"; the greater Darv\dn spoke of 

 him in similar terms; Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, unquestion- 

 ably the greatest botanist of the Victorian era, and the personal 

 friend and wise counsellor of Darwin, in a reference to the 

 work of Brown on the ''Investigator," stated that "the botani- 

 cal results [are] incomparably greater, not merely than those 

 of any previous voyage, but than those of all similar voyages 

 put together." The reading of such unqualified eulogies — and 

 there are many similar ones from eminent men of other nations 

 — should fill us with pride to learn that such a man was 

 destined to be the first to draw aside the veil hiding the won- 

 ders of South Australian Botany from the world of men; nor 

 does it need a vigorous stretch of the imagination to look upon 

 Robert Brown as the tutelary genius of our own Field 

 Naturalists' Club. 



Brown was a Scot, the son of an Episcopalian clergyman, 

 and was born at Montrose on December 21, 1773. He began 

 his schooling at the Montrose Academy, one of the most re- 

 nowned burgh schools in Scotland. Among his fellow-pupils 

 were James Mill and David Hume. Mill afterwards had a 

 distinguished career as a philosophical writer, though probably 

 his most important contribution to the world was his son, John 

 Stuart Mill, the greatest exponent of Political Economy pro- 

 duced by Britain in the last century. Hume became a well- 

 known mfmber of the House of Commons, where he had an 

 eventful career as an exponent of what in his day were radical 

 views in politics. 



