ID president's address. 



Council and of Members, cordial congratulations on his appointment to the staff 

 of the University, and of wishing him every success. His five papers contributed 

 to the Society's Proceedings, as a Fellow for more than three years and a half, 

 are important additions to the volumes, and bear testimony to his ability to do 

 liigh-chiss rescarcii-W'jrk . 



Miss V. Irwin Smith, Linneau Macleay Fellow of the Society in 

 Zoology, has devoted her time tc the study of Nematodes, and of the life-histories 

 of the Braehyeerous Diptera. Considerable progress has been made with both 

 groups, in collecting material, in looking into the literature of the subject, and 

 in the examination and drawing of specimens; and the results are already very 

 promising . 



Six applications for Linneau Macleay Fellowships, 1920-21, were received 

 in response to the Council's invitation announced on October 29th, 1919; I have 

 now the pleasure of making the first public announcement of the Council's re- 

 appointment of Dr. J. M. Petrie and Miss V. Irwin Smith to r^llowships in 

 Biochemistry and Zoology; and of the appointment of Miss M. I. Collins, B.Sc. 

 to a Fellowship in Botany from 1st proximo; and, on behalf of the Society, as 

 war-conditions have given place to something approaching a normal state of 

 things, I have much pleasure in wishing them every success in carrying out their 

 investigations. Dr. Tillyard was also re-appointed; but, as already mentioned, 

 in consecjuence of his contemplated removal to New Zealand, he resigned his 

 Fellowship as from 31st March, 192(1. 



Miss Collins has <|ualifications wliicli justify our expectation of an 

 enlargement of the Society's scope of work in a very desirable direction. She 

 has an excellent University record, supplemented in an important way by some 

 experience of research-work and of teaching. She won the Deas Thomson 

 Scholarship and Professor David's Prize for Geology in 1914, and graduated in 

 Science in 1915, with First Class Honours in Botany. Miss Collins was awarded 

 a Science Research Scholarsliip in 191(i and the following year, up to the time 

 of her appointment as Demonstrator in Botany in the University of Adelaide 

 under Professor T. G. B. Osborn. For some time she has been actively in- 

 terested in the effect of certain climatic factors — especially drought and excessive 

 sunliglit — upon the distribution and structure of Australian plants. This is a 

 very characteristic, imi^ortant, comjirehensive, and promising Australian 

 problem. Her paper "On the Leat'-anatomy of Scaecola crarisifolin," 

 with special reference to the "Epidermal Secretion," which was \n\h- 

 lished in the Proceedings for 1918, was the starting-point . In several papers 

 almost ready for publication, the condition of leaf-lacf|uering and the glandular 

 structures responsible for the same, have l)een investigated in plants of other genera 

 available, some of which were obtained from the Broken Hill district. Miss 

 Collins will now have time to comjilete these, and still further to develop the 

 subject in hand . Two branches of Science in which the Society is s|)ecially in- 

 terested, and in which jjrogress has lagged behind, are the morphology of Aus- 

 tralian phanerogams, and Australian soil-bacteriology and the bionomics of soil- 

 organisms, especially in the arid parts of Australia. Our old member, Mr. A. 

 G. Hamilton, with only such laboratory- facilities as a ]irivate individual can 

 extemporise, and in his wearied leisure, has, for years, manfully striven to ac- 

 complish some morphological and pollination-work; and, considering his draw- 

 backs, his labours liave not been in vain. The great hindrance to progress in 

 this particular l)ranch lias been that, until 1913, there was no Botanical Depart- 



