7 
At the request of Miss S. E. Cameron, two council 
members inspected an area of land near Southport which 
she wished to have made a reserve. 
The club has asked the City Council to place an ap- 
propriate sign in the C. T. White Memorial Park. 
E. N. MARKS, President. 
M, HAWKEN, Hon. Secretary. 
HORIZONS OF TAXONOMY 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
ELIZABETH N. MARKS 
There are among the members of this club, perhaps a 
dozen of us whose chief interest or occupation is the 
taxonomy or systematics of a particular group of animals 
or plants — that is, the classification of a specimen down 
to its genus and species. If the specimen does 'not belong 
to any known genus or species, the taxonomist will describe 
aud name it in accordance with an international set of 
rules. 
Many people, though they can see the use of a name 
for a grass or mosquito which may be of economic or medi- 
cal importance to man, wonder what good there is in having 
names for each tiny insect, shell and seaweed. As natural- 
ists, you often ask a botanist or zoologist for the name of a 
specimen, and you have a far better appreciation than the 
average man-in-the-street of Avhat is meant by a genus and 
species and of the value there is in having a name for 
every animal and plant. Even so, I am sure that many 
of you think of taxonomy as a dry-as-dust subject and 
wonder how anyone can find it interesting to sit down and 
measure the size of spores of a fungus, the angle of the 
veins on a leaf, the width between the eyes of a bug, or 
the length of a mosquito's tibia. Perhaps you think that 
the explanation lies in a mind that likes to have everything 
neatly pigeon-holed, but if you see the state of the average 
taxonomist’s work bench, you Avill liave doubts about that. 
I should like to give you a view of the horizons of the 
taxonomist because it is what he glimpses, or hopes to find 
beyond the horizon that rewards the immediate tedium of 
measuring and counting. I hope to show you the relation- 
ship of taxonomy, not to man’s needs or uses, but to our 
general knowledge of Natiire and its processes, and to give 
you some examples of what taxonomy can draw from or 
contribute to other branches of science. 
Our present system of classification of animals and 
plants Avas devised by Linnaeus almost 200 years ago. He 
