PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. V. 



One of the aims of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales 

 is the issue of a series of handbooks on various branches of the Natural History of 

 New South Wales. The first of these, The Fishes of New South Wales, has 

 just been completed and the Society is to be congratulated on having thus far 

 succeeded in its objective. 



The year's work of the Society's research staff may be summarised thus : — 



Dr. R. Greig-Smith, Macleay Bacteriologist to the Society, contributed two 

 papers "The High Temperature Organism of Fermenting Tan-bark, Part i.," and 

 "Note upon the Extraction of Acids from Cultures," which appeared in the 

 Proceedings for 1921, Part 1. During his year's leave of absence he visited 

 England and took advantage of the opportunity of visiting a number of the 

 laboratories in which work similar to his own is being carried on. At the Lister 

 Institute, where he spent some weeks, most of the staff were working on Vita- 

 mines, Professor Mai-tin was investigating the feeding properties of pure pro- 

 teids and Professor Harden was working with the enzymes and co-enzymes of 

 yeast and with hexose phosphates, while there were also workers investigating 

 bacteriological problems connected with leather. He also visited the laboratories 

 of the Imperial Institute, Univei-sity College, and of the Metropolitan Board of 

 Water Supply. At Eothamsted there were over thirty research workers, mostly 

 engaged in research on soils and vegetable products. In the Biochemical Labora- 

 tories at Cambridge University Dr. Greig-Smith was specially interested in the 

 work of Dr. Peters on the growth of Protozoa in bacteria-free fluids. He- also 

 had the opportunity of visiting, at Long Ashton, near Bristol, the Agricultural 

 and Horticultural Research Station of the National Fniit and Cider Institute, 

 one of the few institutions in England where research in industrial bacteriology 

 is being carried on. We have pleasure in welcoming him back fresh from his 

 tour of these famous research mstitutions and wishing him a successful year's 

 research. 



Since his return he has had under further examination the high-temperature 

 organism that ferments tan-bark, and has also been working to obtain a syn- 

 thetic fluid in which the bacterium will gi-ow freely so that its fermenting capa- 

 bilities can be studied. He also has under observation, some bacteria isolated 

 from Eucalyptus nodules sent by Mr. Musson from Bowral. 



Dr. J. M. Petrie, Linnean Macleay Fellow of the Society in Biochemistry, 

 completed his investigation of the poisonous principle of Erythrophloeum Labou- 

 cherii from the Northern Temtory, the results being published in Part iii. of the 

 year's Proceedings. Further work on Heterodendron has been directed towards 

 the investigation of the cyanogenetic glueoside contained in the uncrystaUisable 

 residues in the hope of isolating the very active principle. Towards the end of 

 the year some success was achieved in this direction, minute crystals being ob- 

 tained which evolved hydrocyanic acid when tested with emulsin. The work is 

 now being repeated with a gTeater amount of material. Experimental work on 

 Cyanogenesis in plants has been continued and a number of plants have been 

 examined and tested, among them being several varieties of Sorghum. A number 

 of plants received from Central Australia were tested both chemically and 

 physiologically but the results showed nothing of special interest. Dr. Petrie pro- 

 poses in addition to Ms cument researches, to commence some work on the 

 natural colouring substances of plants, such as the wattle blossom, etc. 



Miss Vera Irwin-Smith, Linnean Macleay Fellow of the Society in Zoology, 

 has devoted much of her time to the examination, in the laboratory, of anatom- 

 ical preparations of Stratiomyiidae in continuation of her studies in the life- 



