PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION D. 93 
course of this adventure [Cook’s First Voyage], many thousand 
[sic] species of plants heretofore unknown. . . . They 
have also described a great variety of birds and beasts, 
heretofore unknown, or but indifferently treated of ; and above 
three hundred new species of fish, and have brought home with 
them many of the several kinds ; with about one hundred species 
of new shells; and a great number of curious insects, some of 
them of a new genus; and corals; also of other marine animals, 
particularly of the Molusca [sce] tribe. 
“Copious descriptions of all these curiosities, with elegant 
engravings annexed, are now preparing to be published to the 
world by the above-mentioned gentlemen.” 
However this may have been, nothing was published with the 
exception of the entomological contribution of Fabricius, a pupil 
of Linneus. The first instalment was contained in the 
“Systema Entomologiz,” published in 1775; in this about 
223 species of Australian Arthropods are described, including 
12 Linnean, 2 Drurian, and 209 new species. Fabricius has 
left a most interesting autobiographical sketch (mm), in which 
he has made his standpoint quite clear, namely, that of the 
systematist. The Banksian collection of insects is still extant, 
and in the British Museum, to which institution it was pre- 
sented by the Linnean Society in 1862. Olivier subsequently 
went over much of the same ground. Donovan in his “ Insects 
cf New Holland” figured a number of the Fabrician types; and 
Mr. Butler, of the British Museum, has drawn up a “ Catalogue 
of the Diurnal Lepidoptera described by Fabricius” (1869). It 
is not necessary here to refer more at length to the subject. 
If Solander had supplemented the work of Fabricius by pub- 
lishing an account of the vertebrates and molluscs, for which 
it appears he had made more or less preparation, it might have 
been a blessing indeed to Australian zoologists. The omission 
to do it was somewhat disastrous. Such a work might have 
served as a guide, not merely for others to follow, but which 
they could hardly have helped following. As an example, the 
work of Fabricius upon invertebrates was without effect, 
apparently because it was wholly invertebrate work. In Pen- 
nant’s “Faunula’ of New Holland no mention is made of 
Fabricius. 
In the absence of any authoritative published account of the 
Banksian vertebrates and mollusca, only too favourable an open- 
ing was made for Dr. John Latham, Dr. George Shaw, and Herr 
F. Aug. Zorn von Plobsheim. Latham and Shaw had the 
opportunity of making a beginning with Australian birds and 
mammals more particularly, though the former did not alto- 
gether confine his attention to birds, nor the latter to verte- 
brates. But by comparison with the botanical work of Sir 
(m) Trans. Ent. Soc., iv., 1847, p. 1 (Proceedings). 
