10 
years, at least to my way of thinking, was the late Mrs. 
Edith Coleman, who made considerable contributions to 
our knowledge of almost all phases of natural history. 
This lady did, for example, outstanding work on the 
fertilisation of the native terrestrial orchids. This matter 
required very close observation over long periods of time 
and the subsequent capture of the small insects concerned. 
She also made a notable contribution to our knowledge of 
the habits of the echidna, worked out life histories of 
several insects and developed a wonderful wild garden, 
one section of which had something like 150 species of 
“Herbs” growing. Many articles written by Mrs. 
Coleman were published in the “Victorian Naturalist”, 
monthly and weekly magazines, and the daily papei’s. 
I tell this story to show that a busy woman can also 
make considerable contributions to natural history knowr 
ledge. 
To those who have not read the book “Robert Dick, 
Geologist and Botanist”, I suggest they do so at their 
earliest opportunity. In this we learn of walks of sixty 
miles or more being undertaken between the baking of a 
batch of bread and his return to set out another batch, 
our hero, tor hero he was indeed, being the baker of the 
little village in which he lived. These walks were to 
collect rare plants or fossil fish from the old red sand- 
stone. He brought together a famous herbarium and 
many of the fossil fish he collected are now in the British 
Museum after having been described and mentioned by 
Hugh Miller and Louis Agassiz. 
Here we have a man with little of the world’s goods 
and forced hard to maintain himself, yet able to make 
great additions to our knowledge of natural history 
matte's. 
Charles Barrett, or C. L. B. to his many friends, is 
perhaps the man most prominent in Australian Natural 
History generally over these past 30 years. Now more 
or less retired, he is still active and writing books where- 
in he gives of his experiences in natural history and his 
knowledge due to a lifetime of reading in his favourite 
subjects. A real field naturalist. Mr. Barrett has alwavs 
gone off to see for himself whether it be in the suburbs 
near to his home, to outback Australia or the islands away 
from Australia. A first world war soldier, he used his 
location in Egypt to study natural history in that country 
also. On one occasion I remember asking Mr. Barrett 
what his favourite study was, and his reply that he had 
