PHOCEEDINaS 



i* * \i 



LINNEAN SOCIETY 



OP 



ISrEA\^ south: ^Vi^LLES. 



WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31.st, 1920. 



The Forty-fiith Annual General Meeting, together with the Ordinary Monthly 

 Meeting was held in the Linnean HaJl, Ithaca Road, Elizabeth Bay, on Wednesday 

 evening, March 31st, 1920. 



ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING. 



Mr. J. J. Fletcher, M.A., B.Sc, President, in the Chair. 

 The Minutes of the preceding Annual General Meeting (March 26th, 1919) 

 were read and confirmed. 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 

 (Plates i.-viii.) 



Once again, after live years, we hold our jVnnual Meeting under the fegis of 

 Peace. The interval since our last Annual gathering has been a very eventful 

 period, a year crowded with stirring events. This has been due in part to the 

 fact that so many of them have brought reminders of the "eternal verities" in 

 their train . First of all, we have had the Proclamation, and then the Ratification 

 of Peace, and the prospect of a League of Nations. But the War ended by 

 armistice and not by surrender, and the Peace which followed was a peace by 

 negotiation and not a peace after surrender; and so many nations had been drawn 

 into the War, that the problems for consideration and settlement were so numerous 

 and so difficult, that the preliminaries were protracted, and sometimes lacked 

 unanimity. Now the war has ended, the return to a peace-footing has not come 

 about quite so soon, or in quite the same way as perhaps was ■ expected, so pro- 

 foundly have world-affairs 'become involved, and been upset. For example, the 

 belief that high prices for food and clothing would come down when the war- 

 purchases ceased, has not been realised . 



Not less eventful or moving to us has been our witness of the epilogue of the 

 story, which began "Australia ivill be there" ; then, in due time attained the clearer 

 note, "Australia was there"; and then the epilogue "Australia is here again" — 

 but not all, by about fiO.OOO. This story has been a telling illustration of what 



