PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



21 



and a price fixed for scalps. In New South Wales, sixpence 

 per scalp was paid all over the State, while, in Queensland, it 

 varied from twopence to ninepence in different districts. This 

 work was afterwards passed on to the Pastures Protection 

 Boards, and Local Boards in each land district, with a Gene- 

 ral Council of Advice elected annually in Sydney. 



Under the Pastures Protection Boards last year (1911), 

 the following list of noxious animals destroyed, as pro- 

 claimed under the Act, was recorded, with the bonuses paid 

 for them in New South Wales : — 



In the Annual Report of the Department of Lands of 

 Victoria, 1911-12, the cost of destroying vermin, under this 

 Act, is given as £40,142 16s. 3d., including dogs and foxes. 



During the last year (1912), a North Coast Crows and 

 Flying Foxes Destruction Board was formed at Beinleigh, 

 N.S.W., which includes ten shires. 



The opossum, like the kangaroo, lost its enemies, and mul- 

 tiplied rapidly in all suitable localities. A writer in the 

 Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales (1885) con- 

 sidered that opossums were so numerous in several localities 

 in Victoria, that, owing to the constant defoliation, large 

 numbers of the forest gum-trees were actually dying. He 

 pointed out that these forests, forty years before, had been 

 the hunting ground of a tribe of 200 aboriginals, whose chief 

 food-supply was opossums; and that, at the moderate esti- 

 mate of 50 opossums a day, 200 natives would account for 



