PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS.—SECTION D. tes 
by purchase the property of the nation, and, with supplementary 
collections, form the Australian constituent of the magnificent 
herbarium at Kew. 
3. The important reference collection in the Melbourne 
herbarium brought together by Baron von Mueller, already re- 
ferred to. 
In a few words, after a little preliminary hesitation, the 
botanists settled down to the work of collecting on right lines. 
Responsible, expert collectors were selected, and sent out to 
Australia. If not already attached to expeditions, they received 
orders to seize the opportunity of visiting new settlements or new 
eglonies, and of joining coast survey and inland explor- 
ing expeditions. Sir Joseph Banks was the organising head, 
and was in touch, not merely with the collectors and subse- 
quently with the botanists who studied the collections, but with 
the Governors and officials in the colonies who could lend official 
aid in helping on the collecting. The result was that the exhaus- 
tive, representative collecting was undertaken by collectors 
drawn from the nation to which Australia territorially belonged. 
It was also largely carried out, as far as circumstances per- 
mitted, before the disturbance of the flora consequent upon the 
introduction of stock and of cultivated plants and weeds, and 
from the operations of civilised man. 
But if the important work of collecting specimens—of muster- 
ing the flora—was satisfactory, not less satisfactory has been 
the fate of the collections up to the present day. Not only are the 
really important, the classical collections extant, but they have 
always been so carefully safeguarded as never to have been in 
peril. Collection has been added to collection, and conserva- 
tion and concentration have been well provided for. In only 
one instance does Mr. Bentham seem to have had any trouble 
because of the sale of a private collection containing Australian 
types. He says:—‘ With the few Australian species described 
from the herbarium of the late A. B. Lambert, I have had much 
difficulty. At his death the preparation of his collections for 
sale was so ill-managed that it is very difficult to ascertain where 
any particular portions of it may now be deposited” (Preface 
Fl. Aust., p. 10). If there should ever -be a “Fauna Aus- . 
traliensis” on the same lines as the “Flora,” the author or 
authors will have a vastly different story from this to tell about 
difficulties arisimg from the ill-managed sales of private zoo- 
logical collections containing Australian types. 
4oological.—Loological and botanical collecting in Australia 
might have continued as they began, co-ordinately, side by side. 
The opportunities for collecting were potentially the same. The 
flora and fauna were co-extensive, associated. Where the 
botanical collector actually went, the zoological collector might 
have gone. 
