36 
and an application was made to Government for permission to use 
the Royal Part as a depot, or centre of operations, for the carrying 
out of the objects of the Society, and also for a sum of money or 
annual grant to supplement the private subscriptions, to enable the 
work to be carried on, on a sufficiently large scale to ensure a bene- • 
ficial result. The Government at once agreed to allow the Society 
the use of the public park asked for, following the precedent of 
many of the European Governments, appointing trustees ; and the 
liberal sum of £5,500 was placed upon the Estimates, with the con¬ 
dition that the Zoological Committee previously recognised should 
combine with the Acclimatisation Society, that the two bodies 
should combine their staffs, and carry out their objects together, 
sharing and expending as seemed best between them the one vote 
of the Legislature. This amalgamation was of course at once 
effected, and the present Acclimatisation Society is the result. 
The objects of a Zoological Society are so well known that I need 
not allude to them, but Acclimatisation is so much less understood 
that I will request your indulgence for a short time to explain briefly 
the natural laws which have to be combated, or of which advantage 
has to be taken, in the carrying out of Acclimatisation undertakings, 
and also to give a preliminary explanation of what Acclimatisation 
is now understood to mean. 
Acclimatisation to many persons conveys the idea of changing the 
powers of enduring certain climates of different animals so as to 
bring animals of hot countries to live in cold ones, or vice vena, or 
both in temperate climes. But there is no such limit placed on the 
labours of the acclimatise! - , nor does he contemplate, great advantages 
to flow from any such attempt at changing the natures of many 
animals, nor does he give much trouble to this point ; and, in fact, 
by far the greater number of important achievements of acclimatisa¬ 
tion have been rather the bringing together in any one country the 
various useful or ornamental animals of other countries having the ' 
same or nearly the same climate and general conditions of surface. 
To make this point clear, I will draw your attention to the large map 
before you which I have had prepared of the distribution over the 
earth of various animals in the wild state. 
And, first, I would point out that, though the earth on 
each side of the equator is divided into zones, those of one 
side nearly representing those corresponding ones of the other 
in temperature, yet in scarcely any case do you find any 
native wild animal of the temperate or cold latitudes of the 
northern hemisphere, inhabiting the corresponding similar latitudes 
