THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Oct. 1, 1864. 



116 ON MUSEUM ARRANGEMENT 



either animal or vegetable, from Australia, which in this respect has 

 added nothing to the comforts of civilised man, no country has been 

 more richly supplied with the useful products of other parts of the 

 world ; for, not only have the natural productions of the temperate 

 regions of Europe been largely introduced, but even the flowers and 

 fruits of tropical and sub-tropical regions. There is no- doubt that the 

 introduction into Australia of animals long domesticated in Europe is 

 far more easy than that of semi- domesticated animals from countries 

 in a ruder state of society. Perhaps this may explain why the leading 

 animals and plants to which Dr. Bennett refers in his report (and 

 which, be it observed, have all been introduced by individual enter- 

 prise) have succeeded so much better than the later attempts to intro- 

 duce such animals as the llama and various ornamental mammalia and 

 birds. Among other attempts referred to are the blackbirds, thrushes, 

 starlings, and skylarks of Europe ; these latter seem to be established 

 in the Botanic Gardens, but it is doubtful whether such birds can 

 find their appropriate food, except in cultivated gardens, or near the 

 towns. On the other hand, it is to be observed that the introduction 

 into a new country of domestic or semi-domesticated animals is not 

 always an unmixed advantage. Thus, the domestic pig has been so 

 completely naturalized in New Zealand, that its great multiplication has 

 rendered it so mischievous a pest to the sheep-farmer, from its following 

 the ewes and eating the new-dropped lambs, that the flock-masters have 

 been compelled to employ persons to destroy the pigs, paying for their 

 destruction at the rate of so much per tail. Many thousands are thus 

 destroyed in a single season, without any diminution being discernible. 

 Indeed, it has been proved by Dr. Hooker, in an interesting paper " On 

 the Replacement of Species in the Colonies," that the introduction of a 

 new animal or plant often results in its destroying and taking the place 

 of some previous inhabitant, thus rendering its introduction a matter 

 of doubtful advantage, or, at all events, a question to, be ap- 

 proached with considerable caution. It is, however, manifest that, 

 on the whole, more useful results are to be obtained from the introduc- 

 tion of races already domesticated into countries which they have not 

 yet reached, than from the attempt to acclimatise animals for the most 

 part either unsuited to the climate, or capable only of an inferior degree 

 of domestication, or inferior in quality to those which are already in 

 possession of the ground. Under the third head, the cultivation of fish, 

 I have very little to observe, although the subject is unquestionably one 

 of great importance. But as yet we have little practical informa- 

 tion upon the question, and I consider that the advocates of the system 

 are only for the present feeling their way, as the experiments have not 

 been pursued for a sufficient length of time to have produced any posi- 

 tive or reliable results. To replenish rivers in which the fish which 

 formerly inhabited them have been destroyed, it is necessary closely to 

 study the habits of the fish, and to imitate as much as possible their 



