showing the cranium of a South Australian aboriginal pre- 

 senting a marked resemblance to the celebrated prehistoric 

 Neanderthal skull, and having a very ape-like appearance; 

 also a specimen of teal of brilliant plumage (Anas castanea). 

 He did not know the locality from which it came, though 

 several members had seen similar individuals in various parts 

 of the Province. He did not agree with Gould that it was 

 only the nuptial dress of the male of an ordinary teal, but 

 felt satisfied it was a distinct species. On retiring from the 

 Presidential chair he read an address on "Weissmann's 

 Theory of Heredity," and the meeting carried a unanimous 

 resolution that the address should be printed. 



He was Chairman of the South Australian Museum 

 Committee in the year 1884-5, and when Dr. Haacke 

 resigned his position in 1889 Dr. Stirling was installed as 

 Honorary Director of the Museum. This gave him free 

 access to the valuable ethnological, palaeontological, and other 

 novelties in that institution, many of which he brought 

 before the Society as exhibits, or as subjects of the scientific 

 papers with which he enriched our Transactions. There was, 

 for instance, the marsupial mole Notoryctes typhlops, the 

 blind burro wer in the sand, first brought under our notice in 

 1888, and again named, described, and beautifully illustrated 

 in 1891, and still further dealt with in the volume for 1894. 

 In 1890 he accompanied Earl Kintore and a party overland 

 from Port Darwin to Adelaide, and devoted himself to the 

 collection of flora and fauna. In this way he was fortunate 

 in securing half a dozen individuals of this new marsupial 

 mole, as well as much other material, to supply not only our 

 own Museum, but those in the Commonwealth and in foreign 

 lands. 



In 1893 he went with a party to Lake Callabonna to 

 investigate the remarkable deposit of fossil bones belonging 

 to gigantic extinct beasts and birds and to superintend their 

 transport to Adelaide. By the patient industry and technical 

 skill of Mr. A. E. H. Zietz they were collected, specially 

 treated, packed, and removed to the Museum, where they 

 were further prepared and preserved bone by bone; and from 

 these Dr. Stirling and he were able to reconstruct the com- 

 plete skeleton of the enormous marsupial, the Diprotodon 

 australis, a cast of which graces the entrance-room of the 

 Australian wing of the Museum. There were also parts of 

 an immense wombat, the Phascolomys gigas, and portions of 

 the skeleton of Genporms newtoni, a struthious bird allied 

 to the New Zealand moas, and almost equal in size to the 

 largest of these. For more than four years these monsters 

 occupied his attention, and several papers on the physical 



