12 
It will be necessary, under Rule 6, that tbe present Meeting con¬ 
firm the appointment of the gentlemen who have been elected to 
the Council to fill vacancies which have occurred since the last 
Annual Meeting. The Society’s Balance Sheet duly audited by 
Mr. Rucker, public accountant, up to the end of last year, is also 
submitted to the meeting. 
Dr. Von Mueller, C.M.G., Vice-President of the Society, moved 
the adoption of the Report and Balance-sheet, and in doing so 
said that it was gratifying to him to witness once more the pro¬ 
ceedings of the Annual Meeting, more particularly as the last year 
closed in prosperity, and the new one had commenced hopefully. He 
considered that a large share of the present prosperity of the Society 
was due to the care and interest displayed by Mr. Le Souef; he felt 
it more his duty to refer to this as he knew from his former experi¬ 
ence, as the executive officer of the first Zoological Committee, how 
much toil and anxiety were involved in such duties. He further 
wished to observe how large a field of operations there was before 
the Society; in enhancing the resources of the country, for instance, 
he thought that careful researches should bo instituted in the mode 
of development of the sturgeon and herring, with a view of learning 
whether they could possibly be brought to these colonies. There was 
a time when the transfer of salmon to the distant south was deemed 
an impossibility, yet through the patient and thoughtful persever¬ 
ance of Mr. Edward Wilson, Mr. Youl, Sir Robert Officer, Mr. All¬ 
port, and other promoters of the great salmon enterprise, it had been 
triumphantly accomplished. And he would here allude to the oppor¬ 
tunities afforded by new Autartic Navigation, for observing the 
transit of Venus, for perhaps locating the herring in the Autartic 
Sea. Any increase of food in rivers and seas was effected without 
any cultural exertion, while the yield of such food, irrespective of its 
ordinary value, gave so much opportunity for fertilising the land 
without deprivation of any kind. Even on a small scale, much might 
be done by merely transferring a basketful of eels to any lagoon or 
chain of waterholes, which could not be utilised like flowing streams 
for trout and other superior fish. Already on his suggestion, eels had 
been taken from Melbourne to the rivers of St. Vincent’s Gulf, and 
the lagoons near King George’s Sound. He might here remark 
