14 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
The described species of living animals, according to a very 
recent calculation by Drs. Krauss and Lamprecht, largely from 
the works of Leunis and Bronn, reach in number one quarter of a 
million! Of these are Mammals 2,300, Birds 11,200, Fishes 
9,000, Mollusces 2,300, Insects 167,000 (with 80,000 Beetles). 
But even in latest days these numbers became considerably aug- 
mented, thus that of the Micro-Lepidoptera from this part of the 
world by the strenuous researches of Meyrick. 
The admissible species of described living plants number not 
less than 200,000 now, as about 120,000 vasculares, taken in a 
conservative sense, have been fairly well defined, and as Prof. 
Saccardo has given in his large recent work alone 27,000 diagnoses 
of fungaceous plants, so that the total number of supposed species 
already to be dealt with in descriptive Biology cannot fall very 
much short of half a million species. Mitten enumerated and 
cliagnosticised, twenty years ago, already 1750 sorts of genuine 
mosses for South-America ; the zealous and accomplished two 
Vice-Presidents of the Biologic Section have, in spare hours, 
atter their professional engagements, recorded respectively 400 
species of seaweeds from the littoral regions off and near Port 
Phillip, and 600 species of Polyzoa from the extratropic shores 
of Australia, the polyzoic fauna merely of our great Bay here 
being richer than either that of the British shores or that of the 
Mediterranean Sea. Over 1000 species of Australian fishes are 
contained in the Census, which we owe to the Hon. Sir William 
McLeay, whom, to our regret, illness obliged to relinquish in the 
Melbourne meeting the position, assigned to him as a veteran of 
scientific prominence. Mr. Masters’s Catalogue of Australian 
Beetles, largely from collections of the distinguished naturalist 
just named, and commenced by his renowned uncle, comprises 
7200 species; but since that was published considerable aug- 
mentations have taken place. Indeed, thousands and thousands 
of kinds of insects, particularly others than coleoptera, are 
fluttering and buzzing as yet unrecognised, unclassified and 
undescribed in Australian air, entomologists throughout Europe 
and many elsewhere envying those here for the yet easy chances 
of obtaining novelties. 
Let as an instance of rarity of species be adduced the re-dis- 
covery of Amansia mammillaris through some action of my own 
within the last few months on the very isolated Abrolhos-rocks, 
opposite Champion Bay, perhaps the only place of its existence, 
from whence a solitary specimen of this oceanic alge, as one most 
exquisite for delicate beauty, structural tenderness and lovely 
coloration, was brought by Peron during Baudin’s expedition of 
1802, and described in 1809 by the Caen Professor Lamoruoux, 
thus tantalising phycologists all the while. 
Irrespective of the seven descriptive volumes, mainly by the 
incomparable Bentham, on the universal vegetation of Australia, 
