XX, 
colonies was the last* of which it can be said that, even to a partial extent, its 
“Government rightly understanding the relations which ought to prevail with the 
scientific societies judged to be deserving of their support” recognised the claims of 
such “to encouragement and assistance on the part of the State” on the ground of 
devotion “to scientific pursuits unremunerative to the members, but tending directly 
or indirectly to public benefit.” And the example of a man of social position, without 
his sanity being open to question, devoting the best part of his life and of his wealth 
to the advancement of one branch of natural science—and that more particularly the 
most pressing for consideration, and yet which holds out least hope of pecuniary 
emolument, at any rate in the near future—not merely without any immediate 
prospect of the payment of dividends, but in the full expectation that never at 
any time can there be any direct return exactly calculable in terms of pounds, 
shillings, and pence, is one calculated to command attention and to do good outside 
the limited scientific circles of the country. And it is at once a tribute to the 
importance of the subject whose welfare it was his aim to foster, and a measure of his 
belief in the splendid heritage of work, over and above all that non-resident naturalists 
have done, are doing, or may do, which yet remains to Australian workers because of 
their residence in and personal knowledge of the country whose productions it is their 
aim to study. And not less also is it a protest against a disposition in some not 
uninfluential quarters in the colonies to believe that money spent on scientific 
objects is wasted unless, in the absence of directly remunerative results, there should 
be at least a substantial guzd pro guo in the shape of an exhibition or show of some 
kind provided for the delectation or education it may be of the public, and the merits 
of which are so often thought to be enhanced by such considerations as the inclusion 
of at least one object of its kind “the largest in the world.” 
And in Australia over and above the interest which attaches to the subject in 
the abstract,t Biology has a special claim for recognition due partly to the intrinsic 
merits of the Australian fauna and flora, and partly to the deadly nature of the 
* “Tn England, the Royal and other Societies are provided with splendid rooms in Burlington House, which must 
have cost the Government upwards of £100,000. . . . Coming nearer home, the Royal Society in Victoria received 
from the Government a piece of land in Melbourne, and £2000 towards the building, together with an annual grant of 
£200. In Tasmania the Royal Society is provided by the Government with fine rooms, and has an annual grant of money, 
and so in other places; while the Royal Society of Sydney has never received any assistance from Government except the 
printing of our Journal since 1873.” [Mr. H. C. Russell’s Presidential Address to the Royal Society of N.S.W., 1877, 
Journ. and Proe., Vol. XI. p. 6 (1878).] 
+ Biology ‘‘is now admitted to be one of the most important branches of general science, specially important in its 
relation to our material prosperity. Our food and raiment, the essentials of life, are derived exclusively from the animal 
and vegetable kingdoms ; and biological products contribute largely to many of our luxuries; whilst, on the other hand, 
some of the greatest calamities with which we are afflicted are due to the rapid development of animal or vegetable life. 
Many are the associations, under Government as well as individual patronage, devoted to the improvement and increase of 
useful animals and plants ; and of late attention has been also devoted to the arrest of the ravages of the noxious ones, the 
balance of natural selection being disturbed by the interference of agriculture and animal education. The due study of 
the means of restoring this balance, of turning it more and more in our favour, of calling in to our aid more and more of 
the hitherto neglected available species or of the hitherto latent properties of those already in use, of checking the progress 
of blights and murrains, requires a thorough knowledge of the animals and plants themselves; and that thorough 
knowledge can only be obtained by the scientific study not only of particular animals and plants supposed @ priori to be 
useful or noxious, but of a// animals and plants.” [Presidential address to the Linnean Society of London, November 6th, 
1873. By G. Bentham, F.R.S.] 
