2 president's address. 



1873, at somewhat irregular intervals towards the last; and then 

 the Society came to an end. Meanwhile the Society published ten 

 annual Parts of its Transactions, forming two complete volumes, 

 Part i., having been issued in 1863, fifty years ago this year. These 

 publications are of special interest, because they were the first 

 scientific serial publications issued by a scientific society in New 

 South Wales. The half-century anniversaries to which I have 

 alluded, though interesting in themselves, because suggestive of the 

 great development in education generally, and especially in science, 

 of which we to-day are cognisant, are also of particular, though 

 melancholy, interest to us, by reason of the recent deaths of two of 

 the veterans, Mr. George Masters, and Dr. James C. Cox, within a 

 few months of each other. 



George Masters was born in Kent, England, in July, 1837. He 

 emigrated to Tasmania, while still a young man, and subsequently 

 entered the service of the late Dr. Howitt, of Melbourne, who 

 formed the Howitt Collection of Insects, now in the National 

 Museum, Melbourne. His association with Dr. Howitt may be 

 supposed to have stimulated Mast rs' interest in natural history, 

 and especially in entomology. Be that as it may, the pamphlet on 

 the "Fauna of Tasmania," published by Mr. G. Krefft, in 1868, is 

 said by the author, to be based on the observations of Mr. George 

 Masters. We first hear of Masters, in connection with scientific 

 matters, as a visitor, introduced by Sir William (then Mr.) Mac- 

 leay, at the third meeting of the recently established Entomological 

 Society of New South Wales, on 7th July, 1862. He had just 

 returned from an important collecting visit to Port Denison, then 

 newly settled, undertaken in the interests of Sir William Macleay's 

 Collection. Hence it is a reasonable supposition, that Mr. Masters 

 came to Sydney in the year 1860, or perhaps early in 1861. The 

 Port Denison collection provided the material for Sir William's 

 earliest contributions to the Entomological Society of New South 

 Wales. 



Subsequently Mr. Masters joined the Society. For about two 

 years after his return from Port Denison, he assiduously collected 

 insects in the neighbourhood of Sydney, and in the western portion 



