PROCEEDINGS 
AT THE 
SECOND ANNUAL MEETING, 
Held November 11 th, 1863. 
The second annual meeting of the Acclimatisation Society of 
Victoria, was held on Wednesday afternoon, November 11th, in the 
rooms of the association, 30 Swanston-street. His Excellency the 
Governor occupied the chair, and there was a pretty full attendance 
of members. 
Sir Charles Darling, in opening the proceedings, said that it 
afforded him great pleasure to take the chair on that occasion; and 
he only wished he could promise that from his own knowledge of 
any of the branches of the wide field of natural history, or even of 
the main objects of the society, he could personally be of much 
benefit to it. But he derived the gratification he had expressed 
from the fact that he was now, for the first time, coming into actual 
contact with a society which was engaged in advancing the general 
and social interests, not only of the people of this colony, but of the 
people of other countries with whom the operations of the society 
might hereafter bring them into more immediate acquaintance. 
The operations of the society had been carried on with a rare degree 
of energy and zeal, and had been attended with an amount of success 
not always the case in this world, even as regarded enterprises 
vigorously conducted. It was also gratifying to know that the 
association had, on the whole, been well supported in the colony, 
and that was attested in a great degree by the fact of the branch 
societies which had been formed, and which were in operation, in 
various parts of the colony. He had no doubt, however, that while 
the amount of support received had been satisfactory, it would have 
been still greater if there were not, even at the present moment, 
much misapprehension as to the real objects of any acclimatisation 
society. Not a few people laboured'under the belief that it was an 
object of such associations to remove animals, birds, fishes, and 
