^y PROCEEDINGS V; OF THE ^ m \i. LINNEAN SOCIETY ISTEW^ south: ^VTi^LES, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28th, 1917. The Forty-second Annual General Meeting, and the Ordinary Monthly Meeting, were held in the Linnean Hall, Ithaca Road, EHzabeth Bay, on Wednesday evening, March 28th, 1917. ANNUAL GENERAL MEETPNG. Mr. A. G. Hamilton, President, in the Chair. The Minutes of the preceding Annual General Meeting (March 29th, 1916) were read and confirmed. The President delivered the Annual Address. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. The past year has been a sobering time for the serious-minded among us. We have had another year's enlightenment on various aspects of the terrible war — clearer ideas as to what led up to it, a better understanding of the great issues that are at stake, and of the spirit in which, on the side opposed to us, it was begun, and is being carried on; some inkling of its staggering financial import; and, not least, what nations can accomplish in the way of co-ordination and concentration, when the need for it becomes compulsory. Our soldiers and sailors, doctors and nurses, notwithstanding a much more severe winter than they are accustomed to, have maintained the fine reputation for courage, resourcefulness, cheerfulness amidst danger and diffi-culties, which characterised those who first entered the war-zone at Gallipoli, and co-operated so efficiently with their