70 . 
June 12 th, 1934 . 
Brief History F.N.S. 
Evening meetings were at first held at the University, then, 
in a room over what was then known as the Art Gallery, North 
Terrace, later at the South Australian Institute and Public Lib¬ 
rary, and for several years past in the Royal Society’s rooms at 
the Institute building. It was appropriate that Professor Tate 
should give the lecture at the first evening meeting on April 22nd,, 
1884-, his subject being “The Australian Lamprey.” 
Earlier in the same month (April 8th, 1884), Professor Tate 
moved at an ordinary meeting of the Royal Society that the 
“Gossip” meetings of the Royal Society and the evening meetings 
of the Field Naturalists 7 Section be held conjointly at least once 
a month. Mr. T. D. Smeaton (father of our one-time member) 
seconded the motion which was carried, 
FAUNA AND FLORA COMMITTEE. 
NATIONAL PARK. 
Dealing now with the activities of the Section, I must 
first mention the labours of the “Fauna and Flora Protection 
Committee,” which was elected on 21st August, 1888, only 
five years after the establishment of the Section. On that 
date the late Mr. A. F. Robin read a paper on “The Better 
Protection of our Native Fauna and F’ora,” and a motion 
was carried having that end in view. In pursuance of that 
resolution, Professor Tate, Messrs. A. Zietz, S. Dixon, T, G. 
O. Tepper and A. F. Robin were appointed a sub-committee to 
carry out its objects. It was resolved on the motion of Mr. S. 
Dixon “that in furtherance of the proposed objects this Section 
desires to recommend that Government Farm be declared a 
public park and handed over to trustees to manage, and hoped 
that the Royal and other Societies interested will assist in ob¬ 
taining this desideratum.” The Chairman and Hon. Secretary 
of the Section, for the time being, were afterwards elected ex 
officio members of the Committee. Such was the beginning of 
the long and persistent efforts to obtain Parliamentary sanction 
to this Committee’s aims, for it was not until 19th December, 
1891 (three years later) that an Act vesting the Park in trustees,, 
was passed. 
Mr. S. Dixon, Chairman of the F. & F. Committee, in a 
farewell address on 19th September, 1911, after occupying the 
Chair for 23 consecutive years, gave the salient facts in connect¬ 
ion with the efforts to secure the National Park at Belair. In 
my addresses in the years 1909 and 1910, as Chairman of the 
Section, on the National Parks and Forest Reserves of Australia. 
I gave a resume of these efforts. Those addresses are published 
in pamphlet form and can be seen in our library, but the fullest 
