APPENDIX. 



CIRCULAR ISSUED BY THE COUNCIL. 



Certain circumstances connected with, the passing of the vote for 

 the Acclimatisation Society have led the Council to consider it 

 desirable to state a few facts relating to their performance of the 

 duties with which they have been charged. 



The Estimates were laid upon the table of the Assembly on the 

 3rd February. On the 4th, sums amounting to .£1,408,515 were 

 voted. Amongst other items was that of £4,000 for the acclimatisa- 

 tion Society, the granting of which was coupled with a condition 

 that £650 should be raised by private subscriptions. 



From the responsibility of that condition the Council have no 

 desire to shrink, feeling -well aware that from the wide feeling of 

 sympathy with their efforts, a demand can be met, which might have 

 been fatal to almost any other institution receiving Government aid. 



The debate on the vote, and the condition accompanying it, how- 

 ever, have led the Council to believe that their transactions are less 

 fully understood than they would wish them to be, and the rapidity 

 with which the Estimates were proceeded with took them so far by 

 surprise as to have prevented them from providing the Government 

 with such statement of their proceedings as would, they believe, have 

 convinced the Legislature not only that the money voted was being 

 well spent, but that no other public money is being expended to 

 better advantage. 



The acclimatisation, or rather the introduction and assimilation to 

 a new set of conditions, of every good thing that the world contains, 

 to a country so singularly adapted as Australia to a wide range of 

 products, seems about as legitimate an enterprise as can be con- 

 ceived. 



The gathering together in good condition and in sumcent numbers 

 to establish the species, foreign animals and plants, is necessarily a 

 very slow and delicate process, and much time must obviously be 

 expended before very decided results can be expected. Most of 

 these animals breed only once a year, and their natural increase is 

 therefore tardy, however eminently they may prove themselves 

 adapted to their new home. But a brief outline of what is being 

 done will be found not altogether barren of those results, for the 

 fuller elaboration of which it is only reasonable to wait. 



