Another of our honorary members, to whom we are indebted for most valuable contributions to our Transactions, will, I feel sure, not cease to throw a flood of information on everything new within his reach. The more I have had an opportunity of appeciating Mr. Gregory's varied aquirements, the soundness of his judgment, and the acuteness of his intellect, the more do I regret that Australian geography has lost, at present, the services of one of her most skilful pioneers. Still, we have reason to expect that, in taking up his abode in an almost unknown coutry, the western frontiers of East Australia, he will yet at times engage in those pursuits which we have learnt to estimate. And then, again, there is before us the zeal displayed by Mr. Edward Wilson, in rendering available for our use those bounties in which the animated nature of other regions of the world excel.

Our patriotic friend's exertions bear the stamp of a most genuine philanthropy; and, whilst he has earned for his disinterested projects universal acclamation, they are still more entitled to our acknowledgment, as having in part originated within this Institute.

Let us bear in remembrance, also, that the early progress of this society is greatly owing to the interest devoted to it by one of our absent friends, our first President, Captain Clarke, whose wishes for our welfare never yet abated, and are now manifest abroad. Nor be that sympathy withheld which by Blandowski, as a founder and most active member, is but justly claimed. Having spent almost ten years of toil in advancing our insight into the singularities of nature which here surround us, he left our shores to enter, in India, upon a new, and may we trust, a fruitful field for his researches.

In drawing your attention next to those labors and requirements which appear to be of more immediate importance to the Institute, I cannot more forcibly express my sentiments than in the words addressed on a similar occasion to the Linnæans, by Professor Bell:—The very "staple of our society, that element which will contribute most to our usefulness and reputation at home and abroad, are our published Transactions." Well may we weigh these words.

Royal Society of Victoria