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the Society to advance technical knowledge and open a future of 
extended researches boundless in fertility of problems and of un- 
known possible effects in the material advancement of this contin- 
ent. These results are the outcome of individual effort, and it 
is not possible to estimate the value that might have been at- 
tained if the separate workers had been controlled by an organi- 
zation; and I am strongly impressed that a federation of the 
scientific bodies in Australia could bring about at the least a 
scheme for the organization of scientific publication with advan- 
tage to all concerned. The Association for the Advancement of 
Science exercises such organising power, not deliberately but un- 
consciously ; and in doing so seeks to protect the individual or a 
people from the intellectual blood-sucking propensities of a neigh- 
bor. The fact that South Australia accepts such a degrading 
position in relation to its Agriculture and Botany with Victoria, 
or to its Geology with New South Wales, is in evidence of the 
desirability of an interprovincial organization which would exer- 
cise a wholesome influence on the progress of science. The fact 
that Victoria and New South Wales have peculiar gifts and 
talents makes co-operation all the more indispensable to the less 
fortunately situated of their sisters ; each should no longer con- 
tinue to profit by the experience of the other without undertaking 
some share of the task. . 
So far back as 1879 I ventured to express the opinion that 
the science of this Society was largely, perhaps too largely, that 
which is comprised under the term Natural History, and with a 
tendency to the technique of the subject rather than the philo- 
sophical study of it. This implies that the early history of this 
Society represents a time when scientific workers were few, and 
of the ‘ good-all-round ” type of scientist, and therefore popular 
expositors ; that gradually specialization in scientific pursuits has 
been growing, either by the older workers narrowing their sphere 
of observation, or by the advent of new compatriots already 
specialists. But the facts of identification and distribution are 
fundamental, and to the accumulation of which the Society has 
almost exclusively given its attention during the last fifteen years 
or more. In evidence, I offer a summary of the work done by 
the Society in the domain of diagnostic Natural History; this 
does not take into account a very considerable number of species 
which have been either redescribed or better defined ; but at the 
same time I express no opinion of the validity of the genera and 
species diagnosed, except for those which I am personally respon- 
sible. Our competitor for first place in this direction among the 
Australasian Scientific Societies is the Linnean Society of New 
South Wales; but this Society comes in a good second in the 
race for distinction. 
