619 
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25th, 1896. 
The Twenty-Second Annual General Meeting of the Society 
was held in the Linnean Hall, Ithaca Road, Elizabeth Bay, on 
Wednesday evening, March 25th, 1896. 
The President, Mr. Henry Deane, M.A., M. Inst. C.E., F.L.S., 
&c, in the Chair. The minutes of the previous Annual General 
Meeting were read and confirmed. 
The President then read the Annual Address. 
PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
It was with very great diffidence that I accepted last year the 
honourable position which you thought fit to confer upon me. It 
seemed to me that the man who was selected to stand at the head 
of such an important Society as this should be one, who, if not 
actually professionally engaged in matters connected with the 
science of biology, had sufficient leisure to permit of his devoting 
a large amount of his energies to the subject. 
As you are, perhaps, aware I have for some years past found 
my time both in and outside office hours so much engrossed in 
matters pertaining to my profession, that the actual scientific 
work that I am able to carry out is very small. You may there- 
fore suppose that the preparation of an address of this description 
is to me no light task, and I am sure you will accord me some 
leniency, if it falls below the average of the able addresses 
which my predecessors in this chair have accustomed you to. 
At the outset I may remind you that to-day we commemorate 
the Society's coming of age. On the 13th of January, 1875, in 
a rented room in Lloyd's Chambers, 362 George Street, the Society 
held its First Annual General Meeting, and on the 25th of the 
same month the First Monthly Meeting for the reading of papers 
and the transaction of scientific business. In the history of a 
corporation this may not be an event of such importance as it 
