275 



MISCELLANEA. 



Obituary Notices. 



Remarks by the President. 



During the month one has passed away who, for a quarter 

 of a century was an active Fellow of our Society, Mr. A. 

 H. C. Zietz. He was elected in 1886. As one of the officers 

 in the Adelaide Museum he had opportunities for study of 

 much of our South Australian fauna, both land and marine. 

 His first paper, read in April, 1887, was entitled "Descrip- 

 tions of New Species of South Australian Crustaceans." He 

 created a new genus for one Grt/llopa gurus and specified the 

 type as lithodomus. It was discovered in Gulf St. Vincent 

 by a born naturalist, a young public school teacher named 

 G. W. McDougall, who unfortunately died early in life. 

 Doubtless some of the Fellows have seen the interesting 

 little animal, which lives in a vertical burrow in soft stone, 

 and so folds up its front parts as to form a remarkable 

 flat stopper. The second crustacean was the Dromia 

 hi cavernosa, a medium-sized crab with a strange kidney- 

 shaped cavity outside each eye hole, with a red margin, the 

 use of which he could not divine. This was the first of a 

 dozen papers from his pen on birds, fish, snakes, crustaceans, 

 kangaroos, wallabies, whales, dolphins, and fossils. In 

 collaboration with Dr. E. C. Stirling he wrote two papers 

 on the Genyornis newtoni, and one on the Pha>s col onus gigas 

 of Owen. He was largely responsible for the reproduction 

 of the gigantic wombat, Diprotodon australis, whose skeleton 

 is erected in the Australian section of the Adelaide Museum, 

 building up its bones from the friable fossil remains found 

 at Lake Callabonna. The recognition of his scientific work 

 and his friendliness are indelibly commemorated in a dozen 

 or more species named after him by various authors, among 

 whom I am pleased to number myself. Mr. Blackburn went 

 further and created an insect genus of Zietzia. He accom- 

 panied me on some of my marine excursions in search of 

 mollusca, and always proved himself an indefatigable col- 

 lector, an intelligent scientist, and a very easy and agreeable 

 companion. 



We have also to record the death of Mr. G. G. Mayo, 

 who had been a Fellow from 1874 till 1919, a period of 

 46 years, and who is now represented on our register by two 

 of his children, Dr. Helen Mayo and Mr. Herbert Mayo, 

 LL.B. A short tribute to his useful relationship to our 

 Society was rendered last year when he resigned his Fellow- 

 ship and may be found in Vol. XLIV. 



J. C. Verco. 



Evening Meeting, September 8, 1921. 



