PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. VU. 



From our point of view, it was a happy coincidence that the 

 President happened to be a biologist; and that the subject of his 

 address, Heredity in its relation to evolutionary theory, should 

 have been one which made such a wide appeal to others besides 

 biologists. In a newly settled country, almost the first work for 

 the biologist is the cataloguing of the fauna and flora ; an 

 undertaking which, in Australia, is not yet complete in all 

 groups. This Society has been more closely identified with this 

 aspect of biology than any other Australian Society. Now the 

 systematist is apt to become so immersed in his classificatory 

 tables and dichotomous keys, in nomenclatural puzzles, and in 

 applying new names and labels to specimens in collections, as to 

 be sometimes in danger of losing sight of the larger aspects of 

 the subject which interests him, and of mistaking the means for 

 the end. Doubtless Professor Bateson's remarks on the artifi- 

 ciality of systematic zoology and botany, and to the effect that, 

 without the tests of experimental breeding, much guesswork is 

 involved in distinguishing specific limits, and in declaring this 

 to be a species, and that a variety, and that museum-species may 

 be rather different things from the "little species" that breed 

 true, will not be wholly lost sight of, but may have a stimulating, 

 not to say a tonic, effect upon Australian systematists. At any 

 rate, his remarks suggest new ways of attacking old problems, as 

 well as new lines of work worth following up. 



The Presidential Addresses throughout, as well as the evening 

 discourses, were of a high order of merit, and appealed to many 

 sections of the intellectual life of Australia. The Meeting has 

 had a cheering and encouraging effect on us; and has furnished 

 a most instructive and valuable supplement to our experiences 

 gained at the various Meetings of the Australasian Association. 



Notwithstanding the disturbance of the business-life of the 

 community by war, the Society has been able to carry out its 

 publishing work on the usual scale. Printers, like other busi- 

 ness-men, are feeling the strain; and it is satisfactory that the 

 Society has been able to avoid increasing any unemployment for 

 which the war may be responsible. The thirty-ninth volume of 

 the Proceedings, for last year, has been completed in good time, 



