10 
by wbicb it will be found that tbe total expenditure for the past 
year has been £1091 19s. lid. 
Mr. Samuei WiLSOis- 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. "VYhen 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 io drive the birds ; 
but they found it almost impossible to get them in at the right 
time. How 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 
