president's address. 849 



valuable notices of new species and interesting forms of Australian 

 fauna, which, by their contributions to the general stock, must 

 necessarily attract the attention of the naturalists at home and 

 meet with their approval ; and I am sure of this, that the mem- 

 bers of this association may well feel gratified at the result of 

 their friends' labours, and at the addition by the past year's issue 

 to our library of a valuable work of reference. 



Mr. William Macleay's "Descriptive Catalogue of Australian 

 Fishes " is now completed, and will greatly exceed in importance 

 what its title would lead one to suppose. It is, in fact, an 

 exhaustive treatise on a subject which possesses a scientific and 

 economic value, not easily to be over estimated, and I may safely 

 predict that the catalogue will remain for many years to come the 

 standard work on this peculiarly interesting group. 



The republication, at the suggestion of the Rev. J. E. 

 Tenison- Woods, of Menke's " Australian Shells" with descrip- 

 tive notes by Professor Ralph Tate, of the University of Adelaide, 

 will supply to Conchologists what was always felt as a great want, 

 and this rare work now rendered more precious by the Professor's 

 descriptive notes, will be accepted by them as an inestimable 

 boon. 



Another of our members, Mr. J. J. Fletcher, of Newington 

 College, has enriched our pages by the record of a patient, and 

 I am glad to say, successful investigation of a point in the anatomy 

 of the female organs of the kangaroo. The satisfactory results 

 he has obtained, together with the prospect of achieving still 

 greater, will doubtles create much interest among the members 

 of our Society. The space to which I am limited in this, as in other 

 cases, will not permit of any lengthened remarks, but nevertheless, 

 as supplemental to the paper alluded to, I will close this notice 

 with extracts from a letter from Mr. Fletcher, which has just 

 reached me ; and I feel confident that every reader of this journal 

 who may be in a position to do so, will respond to the appeal 



