98 
The Queensland Naturalist, 
August, 1922 - 
appropriately enough, in what is now a very quiet church- 
yard in the bush, near Murarrie, between Brisbane and the 
coast.* 
It was in keeping with the public spirit of Coxen that 
he did much towards the establishment of the Queensland 
Museum. He was a notable naturalist, and we may rejoice 
to have his name commemorated in that of the pretty little 
Fig Parrot, Cyclopsitta ( Opopsitta ) coxeni, once a common 
bird of the scrubs but now rarely reported. 
Silvester Diggles was born in England in 1817 and ; 
died in Brisbane in 1880. The first Queensland resident 
to attempt a literary work on birds, he was a man of 
general scientific, artistic, and musical attainments. He 
was keenly interested in both ornithology and entomology;, 
moreover, his knowledge of astronomy and art led to him 
being selected by the Queensland Government to represent 
the Colony on the Australian Eclipse Expedition from 
Sydney to Cape Sidmouth in 1871-72. As a result, Diggles 
reported interestingly on birds, insects, and scenery of 
North Queensland to the Queensland Philosophical Society 
in February, 1872. From time to time Diggles described 
many birds that he believed to be new, but practically all 
his species have been adjudged invalid ; the only one now 
recognised is his Poephila atropygialis (White-headed 
Finch), and that, too, seems in danger of disappearing 
with the advent of the new Check List. Ilis work, The 
Ornithology of Australia, followed somewhat on the lines 
of Gould, and most of the 600 plates he executed, with the 
aid of his niece, the late Mrs. Cumming,t were very fine. 
All the unpublished ones are now in the Mitchell Library, 
Sydney, having been received by that institution from 
Messrs. Angus and Robertson, publishers, to whom they 
had been sold by Mr. George Diggles (son), of Brisbane, in 
tlie hope of seeing them in book form.J Subscribers received 
* The place of Coxen ’s burial having been located through an old 
newspaper, Mr. Brenan and I visited the neglected spot, thereby paying 
a long-deferred tribute to a very worthy brother bird-observer. A 
fading inscription shows the tombstone to have been erected by friend® 
to wdiom Coxen was il u good Christian and sincere friend / ’ Mr®, 
('oxen lies in the same grave; she died on 11th August, 1906, at the 
age of eiglity-one years. 
t A. J. Campbell states that Biggies ’s daughter did this work, 
but Mr. George Piggies informs me that the niece was the chief 
artist, hand-colouring each plate in each series. 
J Other notes on Biggies and his work, by Gregory M. Mathews, 
appear in the fi Austral Avian Record/’ vol. 3, pp. 98-108. With the 
exception of that article, and A. J. Campbell ’s warm tribute to 
Gilbert, no other extended notice of any Queensland ornithologist 
appears to have been given prior to this paper. 
