30 
seen some four or five “ ring-eyes” among the birds, but the principal 
depredators were sparrows and minas. If any gentleman came down 
with him he could show them some one hundred bunches of what 
were once grapes, but were now sucked dry. He did not wish to 
annoy the Society, or to do anything to interfere with its operations 
but he must say this, and stand upon it—that he believed Professor 
M‘Coy himself would be convinced if ho saw one of these sparrows 
shot, that they ate other things than grubs. He also wished to say 
that tomatoes and peas were very greedily devoured by the sparrow. 
The Chairman said he was exceedingly sorry to hear the account 
just given by the rev. gentleman. T here could be no doubt that the 
sparrow was to a certain extent graminivorous, but there could also 
be no doubt that the young birds were fed entirely on grubs and larvaj 
Buffon, the celebrated French naturalist, estimated that each pair of 
sparrows destroyed 4000 grubs in a week, and this statement was fully 
Confirmed by the personal observation of an equally high authority, he 
alluded to Professor M‘Coy, professor of Natural History at the 
Melbourne University. Although he had large flocks of sparrows at 
his house, he found that by scattering a little wheat on the ground 
his fruit was never touched. 
The Rev. G. Mackie stated that his children had been constantly 
feeding the sparrows with grain, but that did not prevent them 
touching the fruit. 
Mr. Routledge said, if the rev. gentlemen lived in the Western 
District, where he was, he would be more generous to the sparrows. 
They would be very glad to have a number of them there. He 
might mention, for the gentleman’s information, that if he got a 
hundredweight of rapeseed and scattered it about, it would feed the 
sparrows, and would prevent them touching his fruit much. In 
the Western District he had seen all the fruit eaten by native birds 
and he for one would much rather see the fruit eaten by sparrows 
than by the other birds. 
The subject then dropped. 
Mr. Samuel Wilson, in moving a vote of thanks to the Chair¬ 
man, said he wished to make a few remarks about the Axis deer 
liberated by the Society on the Wimmera. He had to report that they 
were doing very well indeed. They were now spread over a large tract 
of country. He had undoubted proof that some of them had now 
reached the Grampians, Mr. Playford, of Stawell, having written to 
inform him of having seen one close to Mount Dryden, a spur of 
the Grampian Range, being about thirty miles distant from Lon- 
