78 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF QUEENSLAND. 
as Government Entomologist in the youthful Department of Agriculture, 
later Department of Agriculture and Stock, and in 1901 became also 
Government Plant Pathologist, holding the dual position until his retire- 
ment in 1929. During these years he published many records of insect, 
fungus and bacterial pests in his annual reports, which were mostly of a 
voluminous nature. One of his earliest Departmental reports was on 
the insect pests of the orange orchards of the Wide Bay district 
published as Bulletin No. 1 (2nd series) of the Queensland Department 
of Agriculture in 1894. Before this, however, and while he was Assistant 
Curator of the Queensland Museum, he was commissioned by the Govern- 
ment to visit the Darling Downs and report on the diseases of orchard 
trees and agricultural plants. The results of this were published as a 
parliamentary paper under the title of “Inquiry into Diseases affecting 
the Fruit Trees and other Economic Plants in the Toowoomba District.’ ’ 
The Government, however, thinking this in the words of the then 
Secretary for Public Lands (Mr. Hume Black) “Too valuable to be 
confined to the shelves of a parliamentary library,” decided to publish 
it as a special “Report on Insect and Fungus Pests No. 1” of the 
Department of Agriculture, 1889. 
Tryon was a man of very keen eyesight and was fond of examining 
everything he picked up with a high power, small-field hand lens he 
invariably carried. He was an expert section-cutter with the ordinary 
hand razor, many of his sections I well remember having the appearance 
of being cut with a heavy sliding microtome. He was a man of very 
sharp scientific intellect, but unfortunately once he had made a discovery 
was not inclined to tackle the drudgery of writing up his results in a 
carefully prepared manuscript suitable for presentation to the scientific 
public. Thus it was that much was never published at all and other 
material was presented in a form scarcely worthy of its importance. In 
this connection it must be recognised that Tryon during the whole of 
his professional life for nearly fifty years was inundated with queries ; 
before the days of stenographers and typewriters all of these had to be 
answered by hand, and many of his letters were almost scientific treatises 
in themselves. 
From his arrival in the colony (now State) to almost the day of his 
death Tryon took an active part in the scientific life of Brisbane. He 
was the first Hon. Secretary of this Society, and Yol. i. of our Proceed- 
ings contains a paper on the “Savo Megapode” of the Solomon Islands 
by A. H. Kissack which was communicated by Henry Tryon and a short 
note by Tryon himself on “A Locust Plague on the Lower Herbert.” 
The early volumes of this Society contain several papers by Tryon, but 
he ceased to contribute after a time, most of his work appearing in the 
publications of his own Department. After a lapse of many years, on 
27th September, 1926, he again read a big paper before this Society on 
“Queensland Fruit Flies ( Trypetidae) , Series I.,” which was published 
in Yol. xxxviii. of our Proceedings. This was the last big piece of research 
work Tryon published. He was elected an Honorary Life Member of 
the Society in 1929. 
It is interesting to note that this Society, largely through the efforts 
of its early Hon. Secretary, was able in 1888 to send H. 0. Forbes, the 
well-known naturalist-explorer, the sum of £100 in aid of his work in 
New Guinea. Forbes, though a capable naturalist and well known for 
his work in Sumatra, Timor and some of the lesser known islands of the 
Malay Archipelago, had great difficulty in financing this expedition to 
New Guinea, and in consequence his travelling in that country was much 
