TRYON MEMORIAL LECTURE. 
79 
curtailed. A large camp was established at Sogeri and it was around 
about here most of his collecting was done. 
Tryon was the first president and one of the founders of the Natural 
History Society of Queensland which was formed in 1892 and had but a 
short life, ending so far as I can find in 1894 or 1895. The Society 
published one volume of ‘ ‘ Transactions, ’ ’ which contains four papers by 
Henry Tryon. 
He apparently never took an active part in the Field Naturalists’ 
section of our Society, which flourished about the same time. This latter 
from the commencement was mainly botanical, no doubt due to the 
activities and leadership of Frederick Manson Bailey. The first report 
of this section appeared in Yol. iv. of our Proceedings, 1887, and the last 
in Yol. x., 1894. From this date the section lapsed, and it was not until 
1906 that another Field Naturalists’ Society was established, the present 
Queensland Naturalists’ Club, of which at an inaugural meeting on 
6th April, 1906, Sydney B. ( J. Skertchly was elected President and Henry 
Tryon Yiee-President. Tryon always took a very prominent part in the 
activities of this Club and in the early days organised many of the longer 
excursions. He was also a President of the Gould League of Bird Lovers, 
afterwards incorporated as a section of the Queensland Naturalists’ Club 
under the title of the Nature Lovers’ League. 
Tryon was also a fairly regular attendant at meetings of the Royal 
Geographical Society of Australasia (Queensland Branch), but so far 
as I know, except on one or two occasions, took little active part in the 
work of the Society and never contributed anything to its journal. 
In August, 1895. Tryon was appointed to visit British New Guinea 
(now the Territory of Papua) to collect sugar-cane varieties, which were 
sent to the State Nursery at Kamerunga, near Cairns, the Sugar Experi- 
ment Station, Mackay, and the Department of Agriculture in New South 
Wales. He had with him as assistant Mr. John Liverseed, of the Queens- 
land Department of Agriculture, afterwards manager of the State Farm, 
Hermitage, near Warwick. In his work, “The Queensland Sugar 
Industry,” Mr. H. T. Easterby, the then able Director of the Bureau of 
Sugar Experiment Stations, referring to this visit states: “Mr. Tryon 
brought back sixty-six varieties, including the well-known ‘Badila, ’ 
which is considered to be the best variety ever introduced into Queens- 
land. The sugar industry undoubtedly owes a great debt of gratitude 
to the Department of Agriculture for this cane, to which the successful 
cane-growing in the North is largely attributable. Seeing that in many 
of these areas 95 per cent, of the cane grown is of this variety, it is not 
stretching the point to say that quite a number of growers owe their 
success as cane-farmers to it. ’ ’ 
Tryon had always taken a very keen interest in the biological 
control of insect, fungus and plant pests, and as early as 1899 had 
suggested the possibility of the control of prickly-pear by natural 
enemies. In 1903 he was instrumental in importing from India speci- 
mens of the wild Cochineal insect for trial in prickly-pear eradication in 
Queensland. Unfortunately, however, this importation did not succeed 
in the establishment of the Cochineal insect in Queensland. 
In a paper published in the “Queensland Agricultural Journal” for 
October, 1910, he strongly recommended that the “Government prosecute 
inquiries in countries wherein the w T ild Cochineal insect or insects are 
indigenous, or have become naturalised on being introduced — e.g., 
Mexico, West Indies, Brazil, Argentina, Senegal, Cape of Good Hope, 
