4 
The Queensland Naturalist. Vol. I. 
LINN.^US AND BUFFON.* 
1907 Bicentenary of Their Birth, 1707. 
By Henry Tryon. 
Although the remarks on luy part that have been the 
outcome of my election to this Presidential chair — an 
honour of which I have been ever sensible — have already 
from time to time made great demands on your forbearance. 
I am reminded by my colleagues on the Committee of the 
Club, that I cannot vacate it without delivering the annual 
address that precedent has ordained. 
As the Annual Report of the Council will have already 
given you a resume of our work during 1907, I need not 
further dwell on this topic ; especially, since the degree of 
advancement in the carrying-out of our raison d Mre that it 
reflects, is not such as one can regard with much satis- 
faction. 
Fortunately, it is not my lot to have to chronicle any 
of these sad events, that often fall to the lot of a President 
of a Club to touch upon on an occasion like this I shall 
therefore strike out on a somewhat unusual course, and 
allude to joyful happenings of an opposite character. I find 
however, that I shall have to go further back than the year 
of my Presidency in order to indulge in this theme 
Two hundred years prior to 1907 were born two men. 
one a native of Sweden, the other a Frenchman, whose com- 
ing upon the scene were epoch-making events for the vsciences 
we especially cultivate. These by name were George Louis 
le Clerc Comte de Buff on and Karl Von Linn6, usually spoken 
of under his Latin designation — Linnceus. 
BUFFON. 
Buffon, the earlier, is best known as being the 
author of Histoire Naturelle Gmerale et Particuliere (1741-67), 
a very voluminous illustrated work on natui*al history, 
affording access to a vast amount of information from 
various sources, not omitting the results of his own observa- 
tions concerning animals of all classes, and even extending 
to the consideration of inorganic objects. This history 
comprised fifteen volumes relating to mammals, and in 
dealing with these Buffon had the co-operation of Dau- 
benton, whose anatomical drawings illustrated the subject ; 
nine volumes relating to birds, two to reptiles, five to fish, 
in which Lacepede was his coadjutor, five to minerals, 
and seven supplementary to the whole. His position of 
Director of Le Jardin de Roi, now known as Le Jardin de 
Plantes, Paris, was of material aid to Buffon in the piepara- 
tion of this monumental undertaking. The work, occupy- 
ing these many superb quartos, not only — for the most 
^fPreiidential Addreas at Annual Meeting of Field Naturalists’ Club, Jan. 31, 1908. 
