34 
world, a series of questions as to the various desirable natural 
products of each country, and the Admiralty has issued a circular 
to all commanders of H.M. ships, directing them to render every 
service in their power to the cause of Acclimatisation, in the 
conveyance of specimens. 
In almost every colony in these seas Acclimatisation Societies 
have been founded, most of them paying that of Victoria the 
compliment of taking it as their model; and with Sydney, 
Hobart Town, Adelaide, Brisbane, Auckland, Lyttleton,and Dunedin, 
the Melbourne Society is thus brought into friendly and frequent 
communication. A Drench man of war is at the time of the 
preparation of this statement engaged in bringing the Society 
specimens of the yak, the ostrich, and other animals. 
There is something so attractive, and at the same time so novel, 
in the very nature of Acclimatisation, that paragraphs referring to 
the proceedings of the Society attain a circulation more general 
than almost any other subject in English and foreign newspapers, and 
such notices are calculated greatly to interest strangers in the 
progress of the Colony. 
Even the very disasters and deaths inseparable from this kind of 
experiment arc not without their uses, as many interesting 
specimens have been contributed to the National Museum, from the 
collection of the Society. 
The Council of the Society is composed of gentlemen who have 
no personal object to serve. They attend the weekly meetings at 
the cost of considerable valuable time taken from their business 
hours, and the reports of their meetings will show that the attendance 
is such as no other non-commercial body in the Colony can 
boast of. 
The Council think that in this brief enumeration of facts they 
may consider that “ results ” have been obtained sufficient to carry 
conviction to any unprejudiced mind, to show how impolitic it 
would be to allow their proceedings to bo rashly or wantonly intar- 
ferred with, and to justify them in expressing a doubt whether any 
other public money is as advantageously expended in regard to the 
future as that portion with which they have been entrusted. 
From the very novelty of the project of systematic acclimatisa¬ 
tion and from the almost illimitable range of the objects with 
which it seeks to deal, a fertile topic is atforded to the sneers of 
the thoughtless and the misrepresentations of the ill-informed, but 
in seeking to stock this country with new, useful, and beautiful 
things to add to our national wealth, to suggest'new forms for c Ur 
colonial industries, to provide for manly sports, which will lead the 
Australian youth to seek their recreation on the river’s bank and 
mountain side rather than in the cafe and casino, to surround every 
homestead and the path of every wayfarer with new forms of 
interest and beauty, and to add new elements to the food of the 
entire people, the Council conceive that they are engaged in a werk 
