president's address. 539 



i 



The time has not yet arrived for reckoning the harvest, we are 

 as yet reapers in the field. But we are justified and it is our duty 

 on the occasion of our Annual Meeting to night to note the 

 progress made by the Society ; and I am happy to state that its 

 position is satisfactory. The list of members now numbers 153 

 against 132 at the close of J.882, 31 new members having been 

 elected. But it is with feelings of sorrow that we record the loss 

 of seven by death. — Mr. J. J. Galloway, Dr. R. L. Jenkins, Mr. 

 Alfred Sandeman, Hon. E. K. Cox, all of whom were original 

 members, the others were Mr. W. Macdonald, elected in 1876. 

 The Most Rev. Roger Bede Vaughan, Archbishop of Sydney, 

 elected 1877, and the Rev. John Forrest, D.D., elected 1877. 



Our Council and Monthly Meetings until July were held, by 

 the permission of the Trustees, in the Board Room of the Free 

 Public Library. Since then the Society has occupied the com- 

 modious house in which we are now assembled. For this privilege 

 we are indebted to the Hon. W. Macleay, and the Council at its 

 meeting in August resolved unanimously, " That upon this first 

 meeting in the rooms provided for the Society's use by Mr. 

 Macleay's liberality, the Council place upon record their very 

 sincere sense of the great obligations under which both in this and 

 other respects they have been laid by the thoughtful kindness of 

 that gentleman." 



A Draft Bill for the incorporation of the Linnean Society of 

 New South Wales was submitted by the Council and adopted at a 

 Special General Meeting of the Society held on 28th September, 

 1883. The Bill was introduced in the Legislature by the Hon. W. 

 Bede Dalley, Q.C., Attorney-General ; it has passed the third 

 reading, and will probably become law within the next few weeks. 

 The Society will then have a recognised legal status. 



In September last Professor Stephens brought forward a motion 

 for the establishment of a Library fund, and by direction of the 

 Council circulars were sent to all the members of the Society, 

 inviting subscriptions towards it, to be devoted entirely to the 

 purchase of useful works of reference on Natural History. In 



