94 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION D. 
J. Smith and Labillardiere, their results are terribly disappoint- 
ing. The “Systema Nature” used with discretion would have 
answered the purpose of the zoologist just as well as that of the 
botanist. To what extent they were influenced by the example 
of Buffon I do not know, but at first Latham and Shaw had not 
arrived at the Linnean standard. They described Australian 
species under vernacular names. Before this was rectified 
by the authors, Gmelin, Kerr (7), and others stepped in to 
supply what was wanting. Here is the origin of some of the 
characteristics of early Australian faunistic work—the waste of 
energy exemplified by the duplication and triplication of effort 
requisite to accomplish what might have been done once and for 
all; an avoidable want of finality about the nomenclature,'and a 
complicated synonymy, biblography, and literature to match. 
However, after much mischief had been wrought, Drs. Latham 
and Shaw eventually arrived at the Linnean standpoint, but 
never got beyond it. They became slavishly Linnean, even 
ultra-Linnean, and were absurdly conservative on the subject 
of Linnean genera. The Australian fauna was discovered after the 
“ Systema” had been drawn up, and some of the characteristic 
animals would not fit comfortably into the Linnean genera. 
At an early stage, therefore, it became a question of the 
System or the Australian animals in question. And as the 
System must be maintained at all hazard, the animals, with a 
few exceptions, had to give way. 
The misfortunes brought about by the ministrations of 
Latham and Shaw were both direct and indirect. In addition 
to the difficulties already mentioned, their work compares un- 
favourably with that of the botanist, inasmuch as they paid 
much less attention to the habitats and history of the species 
they described. A comparison of Smith’s “ Botany of New Hol- 
land” (1793) with Shaw’s companion volume, * Zoology of New 
Holland” (1794), will show a very marked, but characteristic, 
difference in these respects. 
Latham, too, brought about serious complications in another 
way. Surgeon White, on his return to England, took with him 
several volumes of original drawings of Australian birds by an 
unknown artist. These subsequently came into the possession 
of Mr. A. B. Lambert, who allowed Dr. Latham to examine 
them. The drawings in some cases are said to have been “ rude” 
drawings. From these drawings alone, without any actual 
specimens for examination, Latham described a considerable 
number of species of Australian birds. For many years after- 
wards the drawings were lost sight of, and were unknown to 
Vigors and Horsfield, when in 1825-26 they contributed their 
epoch-making paper on Australian birds to the Linnean Society ; 
(n) On the subject of Kerr’s contribution to the nomenclature of Australian Mammals, 
see Thomas, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (5), Vol. [V., 1879, p. 396. 
