VI. president's address. 



histories of Australian Diptera Brachycera; during the year two papers of this 

 sei-ies have appeared in the Proceedings, and anotlier one is in course of pre- 

 paj-ation. Field collection of dipterous larvae for rearing was continued and re- 

 sulted in the addition of some 70 specimens to those already under observation 

 in the families Leptidae, Asilidae, Therevidae, BombyUdae, Muscidae, Anthomyi- 

 dae and Tachinidae. Unfortunately, the proportion of losses in rearing these 

 specimens was considerable. In continuation of her work on Nematodes Miss 

 Smith is now studying species of the genus Physaloptera, especially those parasitic 

 in Reptiles. Three papers on this subject have been completed, the first of them 

 appearing in Pai't 4 of the Year's Proceedings ; the other two will appear in the 

 Proceedings for the coming yeai-. 



Miss Marjorie I. CoUins, Linnean Macleay Fellow of the Society in Botany, 

 continued her observations on the mangi'ove and saltmarsh vegetation in the 

 neighbourhood of Sydney, paying special attention to the Cabbage Tree Creek 

 area, Port Hacking; the results of this work liave appeared in Part iii. of the 

 year's Proceeding's. Following the same line of work. Miss Collins spent some 

 time in the Broken Hill District for the purpose of investigating the Plant 

 Ecology of an arid region, as a preliminai-y step in establishing the relationship 

 between rainfall and soil conditions and plant grouping and distribution in the 

 drier parts of the State. She was able to collect and make notes on the flora 

 for over 100 miles North of Broken Hill and also on the sandy plains between 

 the ranges and the South Australian border and between Broken HjII and the 

 Darling River. The field work thus accomplished now involves a considerable 

 amount of work in the laboratory, particularly in the identification and investi- 

 gation of the material coUeeted. 



Miss Marguerite Henry, Linnean Macleay Fellow of the Society in Zoology, 

 has devoted her time largely to the collection of material and the examination and 

 description of the Cladocera. She has obtained numerous collections from many 

 localities in New South Wales, and also from New Zealand and South Australia. 

 Experiments have been carried on in raising Entomostraea from dried mud in 

 aquaria; a mud from New Zealand which had been in a dried state for over 

 seven yeai's yielded large numbers of Ostracods. The examination of the Clado- 

 cera has been completed and thfe results embodied in a paper which will appear 

 in Part ii. of the Proceedings for 1922. Miss Henry is proceeding with the 

 examination of the next group — the Copepoda. 



Dr. Walkom has during the year contributed two short papers on Australian 

 fossil plants to the Proceedings: (i.) On the Occurrence of Otozanvites in Aus- 

 tralia, with Descriptions of Specimens from Western Australia and (ii.) On a 

 Specimen of N oegg<erathiopsis from the Lower Coal Measures of New South 

 Wales. In addition he prepared an account of some seeds found in association 

 with Glossopteris in Queensland and which may be the megasporangia of that 

 genus, the paper being read at the meeting of the Geological Society of London 

 on 4th May, 1921; he also completed his examination and description of the 

 Glossopteris flora of Queensland, the manuscript of which has now been in the 

 hands of the Queensland Geological Survey for some time. Dr. Walkom has in 

 view a re-esamination of the Tenison- Woods' collection of Australian fossil plants 

 in the Macleay Museum. The original descriptions were published in our Pro- 

 ceeding's in 1883, and it is veiy desirable that such an important coUeetion 

 should be examined in the light of recent advances in palaeobotany. To enable 

 drawings to be made of some of the more important specimens, the Univei-sity 

 of Sydney has generously made available a grant from, the McCaughey ~ 

 Fund. 



