Zoological Career
Macleay lived in Sydney from 1857, the year he was married to Susan Emmeline Deas-Thomson, and was now able to develop his interest in science. He had made a small collection of insects, and in 1861 began to extend it considerably. In April 1862 a meeting was held at his house and it was decided to found a local Entomological Society. Macleay was elected president and held the position for two years. The society lasted 11 years and, not only was Macleay the author of the largest number of papers, he also bore most of the expense. He had succeeded to the Macleay collection on the death of W. S. Macleay in 1865, and in 1874 decided to extend it from an entomological collection into a zoological collection. Also in 1874 the Linnean Society of New South Wales was founded, of which Macleay was elected the first president, and in May 1875, having fitted up the barque Chevert, he sailed for New Guinea, where he obtained what he described as "a vast and valuable collection" of zoological specimens.
After his return from New Guinea, Macleay fostered the Linnean Society. He presented many books and materials for scientific work to it, however all were destroyed when the Garden Palace was burnt down in September 1882. In spite of this blow the society continued on its way and gradually built up another library. In 1885 Macleay erected a building for the use of the society in Ithaca road, Elizabeth Bay, and endowed it with the sum of £14,000. He had contributed several papers to the Proceedings of the society, and in 1881 his two-volume Descriptive Catalogue of Australian Fishes was published. Three years later a Supplement to this catalogue appeared, and in the same year his Census of Australian Snakes was reprinted from the Proceedings. Macleay had hoped to make a descriptive catalogue of the Dipterous insects of Australia, but his health began to fail and it was not completed.
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