XXVII. 
or no attention had been paid to biology, and that up to date it had not issued publi- 
cations though for a time the papers read before the Society were published in the 
Sydney Magazine of Science and Art (2 vols. 1857-59). There seemed to be a 
desirable opening, therefore, for a Society which should confine its attention to 
biology, and, as the number of members, especially working members, was not likely 
to be large, to one particular section of biology, and which should issue its 
publications at short and if possible regular intervals, imstead of delaying the 
publication of papers until the annual volume was complete in itself. 
The first formal meeting of the new Society was held on May 5th, at which 
rules were brought up for consideration and adopted ; while at the June meeting, in 
addition to the reading of the first paper, there was an election of office-bearers and 
Council, Sir William Macleay being elected President, which post he filled for two 
years, subsequently becoming, and continuing for the remainder of the Society’s 
career, Hon. Secretary. His two admirable little Presidential Addresses, which 
were suggested by the pressing needs of all local workers at that time, deal with the 
history of Australian Entomology, or offer words of advice and encouragement to 
those desirous of following up the study of insects, with the recommendation to such 
not merely to exercise themselves in identifying described species or in describing 
new species, but to make observations on the habits, metamorphoses, geographical 
distribution, anatomy, and economic importance, whether as friends or pests, of 
Australian insects. 
The new Society seems to have started enthusiastically and for some time to 
have sustained its enthusiasm. For three years (May, 1862, to April, 1865)—the 
period covered by the first of the two volumes of Transactions published by the 
Society, the meetings were continued with only two breaks, the meetings for July 
and December, 1864, appearing to have lapsed. From May, 1865, to the end of 
1866 there is no record of any meetings ; four meetings appear to have been held in 
1867, two in 1868, two in 1869, none in 1870, four in 1871, none in 1872, and one—- 
the last—in July, 1873; the papers read at these meetings were issued in five Parts 
comprising Vol. II. of the Transactions, but, unlike Vol. I., it contains only papers, 
without any notice of the proceedings of the Society. And as the Society’s minute- 
book was destroyed in the Garden Palace fire, no further details are now obtainable 
from official sources. 
The number of members was not and was never expected to be large, the original 
members numbering twenty-eight, and those subsequently elected about twenty-five. 
From first to last the number of working members who contributed papers amounted 
to six—Messrs. H. L. Schrader, William Macleay, R. L. King, A. W. Scott, 
G. Krefft, and H. H. Burton Bradley ; and their efforts were eventually hampered 
