INAUGURAL ADDR2SS. 19 



assistance from Mr. A. Morton, the Curator of the Museum. 

 The Tasmanian Journal for 1854 gives a List of the 

 Tasmanian Mammals known at that time, compiled by 

 the late Mr. Ronald C. Gunn, who was a good naturalist 

 all round, and to whom Sir Joseph Hooker dedicated his 

 " Flora Tasmaniensis." That list comprised 30 species : we 

 now know of 45. In 1842 the number of Birds described 

 was 134. During the following thirteen years 35 additional 

 species were discovered, and 24 have since been added to the 

 list. In 1839 the list of Tasmanian Fishes numbered 30. In 

 1883 it had risen to 188, and it now numbers 214. Of the 

 716 species of Tasmanian Shells now catalogued, about 228 

 were described in the Society's Journals by the Rev. J. E. 

 Tenison-Woods; and Messrs. Legrand and W. F. Petterd, 

 whose names as conchologists are widely known, have also 

 furnished most valuable information on the Land Shells of 

 Tasmania. The contributions to the study of Tasmanian 

 Flora in the Journals of the Royal Society are many and 

 varied. Sir James Hooker, Baron Sir Ferdinand von 

 Mueller, the Rev. W, W. Spicer, and R. M. Johnston 

 are prominent names on these papers. Of the 87 papers 

 on Botany which our records contain, at least 20 have been 

 written by Baron Sir Ferdinand von Mueller, who, as we all 

 know, for the last forty-four years has been labouring 

 assiduously at the Australian and Tasmanian Flora. The 

 Tasmanian Flora numbers now about 1 00 orders, 478 genera, 

 and over 1 100 species. In ferns alone Mr. Morton's excellent 

 catalogue, as read before the Society in 1890, shows 77 species 

 known to Tasmania. Our Entomology has scarcely received 

 the attention it deserves, — only fourteen papers having been 

 contributed on the subject. Yet that there is a large field 

 for work in this direction is abundantly proved by the fact 

 that Mr. W. W. Walker, R.N., Chief Engineer of H.M.S. 

 Penguin, while on a visit here last year, obtained no fewer 

 than 586 species of Coleoptera from Hobart, and 1871 speci- 

 mens of 798 species from all Tasmania. Many of these 

 were new to science ; and the great bulk of them were 

 obtained by him in the immediate vicinity of Hobart, in 

 moments of leisure snatched from his professional duties. 



I have heard it urged as an excuse for the comparative 

 paucity of contributions of local observations on natural history 

 to our scientific societies that, practically, this work has been 



