PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 477 
rusa, hog, Formosa, and Barasingha deer, the hare, the ostrich, 
pheasant, Californian quail, thrush, blackbird, starling, &c., and 
it has to bear a certain amount of blame for assisting in the 
introduction of the house sparrow ; but it had no share whatever 
in the introduction of that dreadful pest, the rabbit, which was 
brought out by private individuals ; the fox, which promises to be: 
almost as great a nuisance, was also introduced by private 
enterprise. 
The two first-named animals, the alpaca and the Angora goat, 
were costly experiments, and both have failed. In Peru, the 
habitat of the alpaca, its home is on high mountain ranges ; 
there these animals are found at an altitude of nearly 10,000 
feet, seldom descending lower. The difference in altitude and 
climate soon told on the imported animals, and they gradually 
drooped and died out. It is doubtful if these animals will thrive 
in any part of Australia, but the most likely place would be in 
mountainous country far inland, where the rainfall is small. 
The Angora goat, also imported by the Society, principally 
through the instrumentality of Dr. Black, of St. Kilda, at a very 
considerable outlay and much trouble, has also proved a failure ; 
many persons have tried them, both in Victoria and South 
Australia, but all have failed to make them pay, and the only 
pure goats now in Victoria (excepting a few kept at the Zoo- 
logical Gardens as specimens) are a small flock on the Mount 
Bute estate, the property of Sir Samuel Wilson. These animals 
have been tried in almost all parts of Victoria, and also in South 
Australia, by Mr. Price Maurice and others; but they have 
never been able to hold their own, and have in all cases been 
given up as an unprofitable industry, being not only delicate in 
constitution, but troublesome to manage, great care having to be 
exercised to keep them from common goats, which are now to be 
found almost everywhere ; and although on one occasion the clip 
of Victorian bred Angoras reached as high as four shillings a 
pound, and on another three shillings and sixpence, yet as a rule 
the fleece, beautiful as it is, is not as valuable in the London 
market, pound per pound, as first-class merino wool; and, at the 
same time, the fleece is much lighter than that of a well-woolled 
merino. In a very interesting paper on the Angora goat, 
published in the Society’s Proceedings in the year 1873, by Sir 
Samuel Wilson, that gentleman stated that, with careful manage- 
ment and sufficient pastures, his flock of a little over one hundred 
should increase in forty years from that date to over seven 
millions. Sixteen years have passed since then, and the pure 
flock mentioned in this paper has remained nearly stationary in 
numbers. If common goats had never been introduced into 
Australia, and the Angora only had been acclimatised, the result 
might have been very. different, and the animal would have 
proved of great value, for they would then have fallen into the 
