Talk:Richard Helms (naturalist)

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C Hedley. Presidential Address - Journal and proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales; August 19th 1915.[1]

Mr. Richard Helms was born at Altona, Germany, on December 12th, 1842. He was one of a type, now vanishing, of keen, self-taught, field-naturalists, of which George Masters, John Brazier, and William Petterd were exponents and who did such excellent work in the past generation. The whole range of natural science attracted him; in botany, zoology, geology, and ethnology, he was equally interested and of these his knowledge was encyclopaedic. In the field he was an expert hunter, handy with tricks and traps and having the wisdom of a savage as to where a bird would nest or a beetle burrow. Quite careless of hardships, such as cold, hunger, or fatigue, he would explore alone in the roughest country. He arrived in Australia in 1858, and assisted his cousin in a cigar business in Melbourne. About 1862 he crossed over to New Zealand and spent some time in Dunedin. After another visit to Melbourne he commenced practice in 1876 as a dentist in Nelson, New Zealand. During the late seventies and early eighties he resided at Greymouth; in 1879 he married and engaged in business as a watch-maker. Here he made his first contributions to scientific literature. (Helms, New Zealand Journ. of Science, i, 1883, pp. 466, 516, ) Becoming interested in the coleoptera, he formed a large collection. Then he added conchology to his studies and maintained an active correspondence on the subject with Oapt. F. W. Hutton. The west coast of the South Island was then zoologically unknown, and as a pioneer Helms was able to add largely to the number of species recorded from New Zealand. His industry may be illustrated by some of the species discovered by, and named after him. Fereday named for him a new butterfly Dodonidia lielmsi. Dr. David Sharp (Sharp, Trans. Entomol. Soc, 1887, p. lxxiii. ) from 1882 to 1886, in recognition of his researches named the following: — Lissotes helmsi, Cicindela helmsi, Anchemenus helmsi, Steropus helmsi, Zolus helmsi, Tomus helmsi, Adelopus helmsi, Dasytes helmsi, Pycnomeras helmsi, Periatrum helmsi, Somatidia helmsi, Anagotus helmsi, Icmalius helmsi, and Pentarthrum helmsianum. Among many novelties in land shells furnished from Greymouth to Oapt. Hutton, there was included Zonites helmsi. (Hutton, Trans. N.Z. Inst., xv, 1883, pp. 134-141; xvi, 1884, p. 161.) In 1894 a marine shell from New Zealand was called Acmaea helmsi by Mr. E. A. Smith, and in 1915, the writer named an Australian shell Erycina helmsi.

In November 1888 he came to Sydney and entered the service of the Australian Museum. Early in 1889 he was despatched on a collecting excursion to Mount Kosciusko, an interesting account of which has been published. (Helms, Rec. Austr. Mus., i, 1890, pp. 11-16.) Here he gathered a large series of the hitherto unknown alpine fauna. One discovery of especial interest was the primitive isopod Phreatoicus australis. Kosciusko exercised an attraction for Helms for the rest of his life, and he returned to it again in 1893, and again in 1901. He wrote an article "On the recently observed evidences of an extensive glacial action at Mount Kosciusko." (Helms, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., xviii, 1894, pp. 349-364.) This evidence was subsequently doubted by Milne Ourran, but was finally vindicated in an important paper in which Helms was associated with Professor David and Mr. Pittman. (Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., xxvi, 1901, pp. 26-74.) The natives of the Monaro Highlands were described in his Anthropological Notes. (Helms, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., xx, 1896, pp. 387-408.) He summed up his knowledge of the climate, fauna and topography of the Range in a memoir "The Australian Alps or Snowy Mountains." (Helms, Journ. Roy. Geograph. Soc. N.S.W., vi, pp. 75 - 96.) Concluding his alpine explorations in 1889, he proceeded on a collecting tour along the Darling River. After this he relinquished the Museum service and proceeded to the Richmond River in the interest of a private syndicate. He joined the Department of Agriculture of New South Wales in November 1890 as collector, but resigned the position in April 1891, to join the Elder Exploring Expedition. As naturalist he travelled through Central Australia with this expedition, which started in May 1891, and was dissolved in June 1892* Here, as usual, he proved an expert and indefatigable collector. Among his numerous discoveries, Baron von Mueller called a new shrub Grevillea helmsiana, and Dr. J. Miiller named a new lichen Endocarpon helmsianum. In describing the results of the expedition, the Rev. J. Blackburn took the occasion to name after Helms, ten new beetles of the following genera: — Belus, Calycopeplus, Olivina, Tetracha, Thryptomene, Zonitis, Dasytes, Heteronyx, Plagianthus and Telaurina. An article on the Ethnology of the expedition was written by Helms. (Helms, Trans. Roy. Soc. S.A., xvi, 1896, pp. 238 - 332.)

Returning to Sydney, he was re-engaged by the Department of Agriculture, as Assistant Entomologist. He resigned this position in March 1896 to accept an appointment as Fruit Inspector in Western Australia. He finally returned to Sydney in January, 1900, as Experimentalist to the Department of Agriculture, the last occupation of this versatile man. Here he was valued by Mr. Guthrie as "one of the keenest and most original of workers." Helms joined this Society in 1900, but relinquished his membership in 1910. In conjunction with Mr. P. B. Guthrie, he wrote three papers in our Journal on "Pot Experiments to determine the limit of endurance of different farm crops for certain injurious substances." 1 To the Agricultural Gazette of N. S. Wales, Vols, iv to xix, he contributed fourteen papers, dealing with apiculture, bacteriology, wheat, and manure. After he was superannuated from the Government Service he busied himself with naming, arranging and expanding the large natural history collections he had formed. Returning from a voyage to the Solomons, the sudden change of climate brought on a cold to which he succumbed in his seventy-second year on July 17th, 1914. He left a family of two daughters. ___________________________________________________

Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Western Australia Volume 1 Page xxviii 1915.

OBITUARY

MR RICHARD HELMS

By the death of Mr. Richard Helms, which occurred at Sydney on July 1th, 1914, Australian science has lost a versatile and enthuusiastic worker in many branches, and the Royal Society of Western Australia one of its few honorary members.

Richard Holms was born at Altona, in Holstein, on December 12th, 1842, and arrived in Australia in 1858. At different periods of his life he resided at Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth, as well as in several New Zealand cities, and he was in turn a tobacconist, a dentist, a watchmaker, and finally an experimentalist in the Department of Agriculture of New South Wales.

For a review of his scientific work in other portions of Australasia the reader should refer to the account of him contained in the Presidential Address delivered to the Royal Society of New South Wales on May 5, 1915, by Mr. Charles Hedley, from which the foregoing particulars are taken.

He first visited Western Australia as a naturalist to the Elder Exploring Expedition which entered the State from South Australia on July 18, 1891, in the neighbourhood of Blyth Range, from which, after visiting the Cavanagh and Barrow Ranges, it crossed the Great Victoria Desert to the Queen Victoria Springabd Fraser's Range. From Fraser's Range, the party to Southern Cross and thence northward to the Murchison, where the expedition was dissolved in January 1892.

The collections made by Helms on this expedition are our chief source of knowledge as to the fauna of the dry interior regions of Western Australia, and he added considerably to our knowledge of their flora. These collections are described by various specialists in the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, vol. XVI.; Helms himself contributing a valuable account of the natives of the several tribes met with, notes on whom he had taken during the journey in the intervals of his work as collector.

From 1896 to 1900 he was in Western Australia as biologist to the Department of Agriculture. During this period he published a number of papers on subjects connected with the work on which he was engaged, of which the following is a list -

Apiculture: The Honey Bee (3 articles); Foul Brood or Bee Pest.

Animal Parasites: The Fowel Tick; The Common Bot-fly of the Horse; The Parasites of the Sheep (external and internal); A Horse-Bot new to the Southrn Hemisphere; The Cattle Tick; The Camel Tick; The Bot-Flies of Cattle; The Camel Bot; Parasites of Poultry (external and internal); Horse-Bots; On the Synonymy of Ticks.

Laboratory Notes: The Lesser Wax-Moth, etc.

Noxious Weeds: The Bathurst Burr; Stinkwort; Dodder.

Plant Diseases: Ear Cockle in Wheat; Potato Scab; "Take-All"

Useful and Noxious Birde: The House Sparrow; The Starling; The Goat-Suckers.

A Proposal for the Acclimatisation of a few Insectivorous Animals.

From June to October. 1896, Mr. Holmes visited the neighbourhood of Wyndham with the special object of investigating cattle-ticks. A report on this subject was written by him, as well as an article in three parts entitled "East Kimberly," which probably gives the best account of the geology, climate, fauna and flora of the neighbourhood of Wyndham which has yet appeared.

In 1897 he made a trip to the Houtman's Abrolhos, on which he read a paper to the Mueller Botanic Society on June, 6, 1898, which was subsequently published by the Department of Agriculture.This is the best and most comprehensive account of that interesting group of islands which has appeared at present.

A note in the Journal of the Department for January, 1900, records the fact that the Department had sustained a severe loss in the departure of Mr. R. Helms. Mr Helms was an enthusiastic member of the Mueller Botanic Society, inaugurated on July 1st, 1897, and was elected Vice-President. Two lectures on Entomology given by him were printed in the Society's Journal, and after his removal to Sydney he was elected an Honorary Member.

A collection of plants made by Mr. Helms is incorporated in the Herbarium of the Department of Agriculture, whilst his collection of birds' eggs is in the Western Australian Museum.

W.B.A. [W.B. Alexander is listed in the journal as an officer of the society from October 13th, 1914]