50 
food, there can be no doubt that all their best qualities will be 
preserved, if not improved. Our own flocks have increased rapidly. 
The Angora goats of Asia Minor, we have introduced with great 
success and benefit, and in a few months we expect a largo number of 
the pure Cashmere-shawl goat, from Thibet, which have been already 
purchased for the Society, with the intention of forming a great 
herd on some of the highest mountains of Gipps Land, which retain 
snow sufficiently long to produce the temperature necessary for preser¬ 
vation of the finest qualities of the wool and hair. And finally, we 
have made such arrangements as will bring us, during the year, seve- 
lal of the most valuable of the South African antelopes — specimens 
are before you of a number — out of which the oryx and koodoo 
we trust to receive first, and finally, that finest of all the African 
antelopes, the eland (Oreas camia), a species larger than the largest 
ox, but with the most delicate and nutritious flesh, is to be the chief 
object on which our resources will be expended, to acclimatise it, in the 
coming year. And as it inhabits, as you see by the map, the same lati¬ 
tudes in South Africa, as our country presents, and is remarkable for 
flourishing for months together without drinking, and when the herb¬ 
age is as dry as powder, we hope by acclimatising it on the route of 
our exploring expedition of Burke to Carpentaria, to fix in that 
country’ for ever a supply of that wholesome food, the want of which 
has caused us to mourn our heroic explorers. 
Now, ladies and gentlemen, you see the great task which has been 
reserved for us — the stocking of our new country with all the more 
important, useful, and ornamental kinds of animals, whether quadru¬ 
peds, birds, or fishes, which are to be found in other parts of the 
world in similar climates, but of which the vast continent of Austra¬ 
lia has been left by nature most singularly and exceptionally desti¬ 
tute. This task our Acclimatisation Society has undertaken; and from 
what I have stated this evening, you see that, even already our 
labours and our success have been neither few’ nor unimportant. To 
be most thoroughly successful, however, the Society requires the 
sympathy of every man, woman, and child in the country, as even 
the humblest or w'eakest may’ help the cause by aiding in the pre¬ 
servation of the creatures turned loose by the Society, until they 
have had time to establish themselves completely in numbers in the 
country ■ and the support, as far as becoming members of the 
Society’ of all those who can afford it, is also required, and would 
not only most materially aid the Society in those early and expensive 
years, but the moral effect produced on the Government by a large 
body of intelligent and influential members would tend to insure (he 
