President's Address CV 
two years, another volume has been despatched to the printers, which 
forms the second part of Mr. Péringuey’s ‘Catalogue of South African 
Coleoptera.’ Some of the highly-artistic plates for this part are already 
completed, and, as your Council has authorized the printing of the 
third part of this catalogue also, we shall soon possess a complete volume 
of this work, comprising the Cicindelide and Carabidee—families as 
fascinating to entomologists as orchids are to botanists. 
At the commencement of my address I stated that I intended to dis- 
cuss a more comprehensive subject than the work of this Society during 
the last two years. I shall endeavour to-night to lay before you an 
account of the progress of natural science in relation to South Africa 
during the last ten years, which will lead us up to a consideration of the 
present state of scientific research concerning this country. 
For one who is in the midst of practical work, and has little time to 
spare for scientific research, the attempt to deal with this subject is 
very bold, and although I became more and more conscious of the 
shortcomings of this paper when I began to arrange and work out my 
notes, I decided to go on with it for several reasons : partly because it is 
now ten years since I became a member of this Society, but principally 
because I think that such a review would be of advantage to scientific 
research in South Africa. 
Year in, year out, one hears complaints that little or nothing of such 
work is being done in this country ; but I do not think that matters are 
quite so bad, and I cherish the hope that the knowledge of what has 
been done will be a stimulus to further progress and advancement. It 
appears to me that the people of this country are awakening ; that the 
attention to, and interest in, matters scientific is greater at present than 
it has ever been. Such a time seems to me to be especially appropriate 
to see how much or how little has beendone. As many of the problems 
awaiting scientific research in South Africa have been pointed out and 
discussed, on various occasions, by our first President, Sir Bartle Frere, 
in his very comprehensive address ; by Mr. Gamble, in a special paper 
read in 1880; and by several of my predecessors in their annual 
addresses, I shall not weary you with a repetition of their words. Only 
this much must be said, that some of the problems mentioned have 
found investigators ; that most of them, however, are still waiting to be 
investigated. 
The restriction which I have placed on the title of my address explains 
why I shall not include in this review the highly important work done 
at the Royal Observatory. Besides, there is no need for doing so, as 
my distinguished predecessor in this Chair, and his colleague, in their 
numerous communications, have demonstrated to us that there is at 
least one place in South Africa where scientific research has a real home 
