BROWN, Robert

Musgrave (1932) records that Brown was a botanist who visited Australia as naturalist on board the Investigator commanded by Captain Flinders. He left England in 1801 and was in Australia until 1805. He visited the Islands in Bass Straits, the settlements of Port Dalrymple and Hobart in Tasmania, and the Hawkesbury, Hunter and Williams River Valleys in New South Wales. He made collections of insects which were described by W.S. Macleay (1819), W. Kirby (1818) and W.E. Leach (1819). These included Coleoptera, and Kirby named Cetonia brownii after him. There is a detailed account of Brown and the voyage, by P.I. Edwards in J. Soc. Biblphy nat. Hist., 7, 1976, 385-407. (MD 12/01)