228 
ALMOST HUMAN 
IMPORTATIONS 
For years it used to be the quaint custom of the gardens to shoot 
a fat buck and send it as a present to be eaten at the dinners given at 
the opening of Parliament. In those days deer were plentiful enough 
in Victoria for it to be a comparatively common sight to see one hang- 
ing, skin and antlers still on him, in the shop of a leading Melbourne 
butcher. The Acclimatisation Society has turned out large numbers 
of deer from time to time, but, owing to the settlers’ guns being too 
actively used, they have not multiplied as was originally expected. In 
Gippsland there were once fifty hog deer turned out. These little things 
are scarcely larger than goats, and would have been valuable assets to 
the country, but the settlers killed them off too rapidly for any good to 
come of the experiment. Further up in the mountains Barrasingha 
deer were set loose, and, as they were able to penetrate deeper than man, 
they apparently thrived to a limited degree. Sambur deer appear to 
have done better than any other kind, and they too were loosed by this 
society. Around Cranbourne these deer are still to be found, and about 
Werribee Park the red deer have found sanctuary. Hares and pheasants 
were also turned adrift to multiply in our open lands, but the pheasants 
were ruthlessly slaughtered by the settlers and tramps. In one season 
the Society turned out three hundred pheasants, and the next year two 
hundred and fifty. Mr. A. C. Le Souef took them up to the Gippsland 
ranges and liberated them near Gembrook. Had they been given a few 
years to multiply, they would have afforded sport for every gun-man 
about, but they were killed so stupidly that Mr. Le Souef lost heart. It 
was found that hares would not thrive in Gippsland, but they did well 
in the Sunbury district. 
Mr. Wilkie owns to being the first man to free a starling in Victoria. 
He repents of it now, although he still believes their credit account is 
heavier than their debit. Many years ago there were twenty of these 
pretty, noisy little birds in a cage in the gardens, and they began to 
droop unaccountably. Nine of them died in quick succession, then Mr. 
A. C. Le Souef thought it best to give the remainder their liberty. So 
under his directions Mr. Wilkie freed them. They never left the gardens ; 
they roosted there at night, and fed there by day. At the end of the 
first Spring there were rather more than the original eleven, and the 
