4 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



ment of Van Hoote. Afterwards, in the interest of his health, 

 he went to Italy, but without satisfactory results; and he then 

 decided to try the milder climate of the South Seas. He spent 

 some time in collecting plants in Samoa, Tonga, and the Caroline 

 Islands; and finally came to Sydney, in 1881, where he spent the 

 rest of his days. His connection with the Sydney Botanic 

 Gardens dates from the year mentioned. During the next fifteen 

 years he collected extensively in New South Wales, for the 

 Botanic Gardens; and subsequently became Botanical Assistant. 

 Mr. Betche was naturally of a retiring disposition, and this 

 characteristic was intensified by the fact that he was almost a 

 life-long sufferer from a troublesome asthmatic complaint. But 

 his interest in botany never flagged, and he accomplished, in his 

 own unostentatious way, a considerable amount of useful and 

 valuable work in connection with the Gardens and the State 

 Herbarium, the importance of which is not to be estimated by 

 what has been published. He collaborated with the late Mr. 

 Charles Moore, in the production of a " Handbook of the Flora 

 of New South Wales," published in 1893, now out of print, and 

 much in demand; and with Mr. J. H. Maiden, in a long series 

 of contributions, particularly "Notes from the Botanic Gardens, 

 Sydney," in the Society's Proceedings covering the period from 

 1896-1913. 



Mr. Thomas Stephens, the younger brother of the late Pro- 

 fessor W. J. Stephens, was born in 1830, and died in Hobart in 

 the latter part of last year. It would be diflicult to find another 

 case of two brothers who served, so eminently, and for so long a 

 time concurrently, the cause of education and science, in slightly 

 difi'erent ways, in two of the States of the Australian Common- 

 wealth. After taking his degree at Oxford, Thomas Stephens 

 came out to Victoria in 1855, but migrated to Tasmania in the 

 following year, where he spent the remainder of his life. From 

 1857, he was identified with the Department of Education, first 

 as Inspector of Schools, and finally as Director of Education. 

 He joined the Royal Society of Tasmania in 1858, and from the 

 time of his residence in Hobart, he was an ofiice bearer. He 

 was no less keenly interested in the establishment of the Uni- 



