10 



by which it will be lound that the total expenditure for the past 

 year has been £1091 19s. lid. 



Mr. Samuel "Wilson moved the adoption of the Eeport and 

 Balance Sheet, and in so doing, said the Members would perhaps 

 expect that he should give some account of the animals and 

 birds belonging to the Society, of which he had charge at 

 his station on the "Wimmera. The Angora goats were now in 

 the most thriving condition. "When they arrived at his place 

 they were in a delicate state, and had not, apparently, before 

 been on pastures which suited them. One died on the first 

 night of arrival, and many of them fell down from weakness 

 when any one went near them. The ostriches during the past 

 season had not done well : it seemed that heavy rains, such as 

 had fallen this season, were not favorable to ostriches, although 

 they were to stock generally ; and that they throve best in a dry 

 climate, or desert place. Only one of the female birds had pro- 

 duced seven young ones this season, but none of them had 

 thriven. In the previous season one of the ostriches brought 

 out twelve birds from thirteen eggs, and they all throve but one, 

 which met with an accident. As regarded their management, it 

 was most difficult to keep them in a state of domestication. 

 When turned out of the paddock, they gradually got wilder, and 

 as they ran faster than a horse, it was most difficult to get them 

 in the yard again, to take their feathers from them. That oper- 

 ation had to be done at a certain season of the year, when the 

 feathers were ripe, or, if not, they became bare and compara- 

 tively worthless. This year he had the greatest difficulty in 

 trying to get the ostriches in the yard at the proper season, and 

 the consequence was the feathers were of little value. He had 

 some men out riding for many days trying to drive the birds ; 

 but they found it almost impossible to get them in at the right 

 time. Now he had adopted another plan, and fed them near the 

 yards, so that it was a comparatively easy matter to secure 

 them ; and when once in the yard it was not difficult to pluck 

 the feathers off them. As their management was now under- 

 stood, he thought they would increase rapidly, and that in future 



