70 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION D. 
opportunity was offered by Australia, the Fifth Continent of the 
Globe, to whose flora and fauna we are shut up, and in whose 
isolation we participate. 
When by the aid of personal knowledge of the country and 
its productions, one has at all thoroughly come to realise the 
Australian standpoint, it seems neither far-fetched nor fantastic 
to say that the investigation of the Australian fauna and flora 
on right lines, as a study in continental biology, was not less 
important, and not less worth doing well, than the investigations 
in oceanic biology for which in our own time the magnificent 
“ Challenger” Expedition was chiefly fitted out, and so success- 
fully sent on its way. Indeed, in the one case the opportunity . 
was open for a time only, but not indefinitely ; in the other the 
longer it remained open the more hopeful the prospects of 
better methods and better equipment, and, therefore, of more 
complete success. 
How the botanists, after a little preliminary skirmishing, 
grandly rose to the occasion, and what they have accomplished, 
is a simple story, and on the whole from almost every stand- 
point a satisfactory story; moreover, it has been succinctly 
Yecorded. 
How the zoologists accepted their share of the golden oppor- 
tunity, what they have to show in the shape of net results 
aiter one hundred and thirty years’ work, and in what condition 
the land fauna finds itself after one hundred and twelve years’ 
exposure to the “ravages of civilisation,” are matters which do 
not seem to be quite so well known, or so easily ascertainable. 
The present occasion, the last Meeting of the Association, 
during the nineteenth century, seems to be a very appropriate 
one for inviting the attention of this Section to the 
subject of the birth and early growth of our existing know- 
ledge of the Australian fauna, considered especially from 
the Australan standpoint. I particularly emphasise the 
standpoint, because at the outset I feel impelled to add 
that I think this is about the only standpoint from which 
the matter is at all worth any very serious attention. One 
has also to remember, of course, that this was not the stand- 
point of those who first concerned themselves with the fauna. 
On 10th January, 1770, one hundred and thirty years ago to- 
day, the voyagers on board H.M.S. “ Endeavour” obtained their 
first view of Mount Egmont. The coast of New Zealand had 
been first sighted on 16th October, 1769, and about three 
months had already been spent on the investigation of the 
North Island. The circuit thereof was completed about a 
month later (on 9th February). That of the South Island fol- 
lowed in due course, and was completed on 26th March, when 
the “ Endeavour” anchored in Admiralty Bay, in Cook’s Straits, 
