125 
Mar. 81, 1910. The Queensland Naturalist. 
Gryptocephalidae, one with blue-green patches on its 
elytra {C. iridipennis). and the other an orange-black 
spotted glossy insect {C. speciosus). 
On the foliage a lady member found the curious limpet- 
like larval coverings of the remarkable Psyllid insect, 
Spondyliaspis eucalypti of Dobson. 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
By Sydney B. J. SkertcJily, 
Late of H.M. Geological Surveys of England and Queens- 
land : ex-President of the Royal Society : President of 
the Child-Study Association, and of the Examining Board 
of the Institute of Ophthalmic Opticians of Queensland, 
etc., etc. 
THE SO-CALLED “ IMPERFECTION OF THE 
GEOLOGICAL RECORD.” 
Nascentes morimur. finisque ah origine pendet. 
(Manilius.) 
I. — The Problem Stated. 
1. — No educated person at the present day. I imagine, 
has any doubt that the Theory of Evolution as applied to 
organic nature is established. We may, we do — nay, 
we must — accept it as proven that the existing plants 
and animals are the lineal descendants, the blood 
relations of those bygone forms entombed in the rocks 
which we call fossils. The sacred dame of life, lit who 
can say when, upon earth’s altar, burns still ; it has been 
diffused over every land, tlirough every sea, each life- 
light kindled at the parental hearth, as our blackfellow 
neighbours used to start the tribal camp-fire with the 
fire-stick brought from other camps. Descent with modifi- 
cation is the charter vTitten for our learning in the great 
Herald’s College of Palaeontology. the metaplior 
as you Avill, the truth stands out clear for all to read : 
Life is the real sacred fire, but whether the spark was lit 
once and for all, whether simultaneously in many places, 
or whether Prometheus visited the ancient world at 
intervals when all A\'as young, it would as yet be rash to 
dogmatize about. What we may assert with comidence 
is that each living organism has received its life from pre- 
existing life, and that the fossils of the Cambrian were 
the direct ancestors of the beings that now people this 
planet. The family trees may be incomplete, but it is 
because some of the testaments are lost, not because they 
did not exist ; and in no case has the property passed out 
of the direct line. 
