PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION D. 101 
civilised man during the period of little more than a century 
since Australia was colonised have been profound. The changes 
which the coming century will bring about will probably be 
drastic. But in endeavouring to realise what the disturbing in- 
fluences already amount to, there is the initial difficulty in the 
way of realising what the land fauna was in its undisturbed 
state. 
The botanist by the aid of the “ Flora Australiensis” can com- 
pile local floras from reliable data secured when the flora was 
undisturbed. The Illawarra of to-day is not the Illawarra 
of Allan Cunningham’s day. But in its palmy days it received 
the attention of the botanist, and thé results of his investiga- 
tions are on record. But for the zoologist matters are different. 
The information respecting the distribution of the fauna in 
early colonial days has for the most part been lost—the first 
half-century is largely a blank. The leavening influence which 
could help to convert a descriptive catalogue of specimens in 
a museum into a “ Fauna Australiensis” long since became inert. 
Under the influence of the zoological renascence which Gould’s 
visit to Australia inaugurated, Dr. J. E. Gray thus expressed 
his views in the year 1841:—“If in our collection[s| and 
catalogues we were to mark all the species found in Europe as 
coming from England, we should be nearly as correct as we are 
at present in the determination of the localities of the Australian 
animals, for almost all the specimens are marked as coming 
from New Holland. This is not only the case with the speci- 
mens contained in the museums, but also with respect to the 
observations of some recent voyagers [on King’s surveys]” (w). 
And in a letter of date July, 1841, to Captain Grey, he speaks 
of ‘‘the very little attention which has hitherto been paid to the 
distribution of the animals of Australia, and the very incorrect 
manner in which the habitats are given in collections and 
systematic works” (v). At this time Dr. Gray had recently 
taken charge of “a complete series of all the species and 
varieties brought by Mr. Gould from different parts of this Con- 
tinent | purchased by the British Museum]; and these specimens 
were all marked with the habitat immediately after they were 
procured.” 
The state of things indicated by Dr. Gray’s remarks is one of 
the unsatisfactory legacies which has come down to us from the 
Pre-Victorian Era. It was the accumulation of half a century, 
during which the land fauna was becoming disturbed and de- 
pleted—locally it is true, but on a steadily increasing scale. 
Hence it became a heritage which needs to be put into liquida- 
tion, with a view to reconstruction. 
(u) Brit. Assoc. Report, 1841, Trans. of Sections, p. 68. 
(v) Appendix to Grey’s Journals, Vol. ii, p. 397. 
