1 Ava., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 115 
Mr. Cyaraway moved that a special vote of thanks be given to Mrs. 
Lance Rawson for her valuable and interesting paper on poultry. This was 
seconded by Mr. G. F. Sanprock, and carried with acclamation. 
THE FLYING-FOX AND OTHER PESTS. 
Mr. T. A. Brominey (Pialba) said his district was particularly infested 
with flying-foxes, and he did not know of any fruit which they would not 
tackle. About Pialba, their attacks were spasmodic. His boys might shoot a 
few one night and scare them off, then stay up all next night and not see a 
signof them. A couple of nights after, when not expected, they would be 
back again. Not far from his place was a flying-fox camp, where there were 
at least four acres of flying-foxes ten deep, and if any gentleman present got 
within half-a-mile of the lee-side of that camp he would assuredly know it. 
This camp had recalled to his mind an incident that he had seen some years 
ago at Kanyan, where a somewhat similar camp existed at the time. At 
Kanyan there was a sugar plantation, where a number of kanakas were 
engaged, and, as many doubtless knew, kanakas were very fond of flying-foxes, 
one kanaka being easily able to account for about ten of them at a meal. One day 
these kanakas built huge piles of fallen tinber round about the camp and damped 
them down. ‘The next morning he (Mr. Bromiley) saw a great smoke arising 
from the piled-up timber, and millions of flying-foxes hovering about. Finally, 
he discovered the kanakas had managed to smother thousands of the foxes, 
but even then they had but barely affected the fringe of the camp. Even the 
kanakas did not care too much to go and face the stench inside it, and as for 
a white man it would have sickened him. There was something terrifying 
about such camps. ‘The above had suggested to him that perhaps it 
would be possible to have a lot of bombs placed inside a camp, and 
have them fired off simultaneously with an electric battery. Such a plan 
might destroy an enormous number of the foxes, and bombs made of dynamite 
or some similar substance would not be very expensive. He believed some 
money had been voted by the Government for the destruction of flying-foxes 
in the colony, and at any rate his Board were prepared to do something 
towards mitigating the evil. ; 
Mr. T. Wutreney (Coowonga) said most of the fruitgrowers about Rock- 
hampton were troubled by flying-foxes. As for combating them, he thought 
it was rather too much to ask the Government to do it, as fruitgrowers would 
be the only persons directly benefited by any action that might be taken. 
Fruitgrowers should combine and see if they could net do something in the 
matter themselves—such as by organising shooting parties, for instance. As for 
flying-fox camps, his experience of them was that the foxes in them always 
kept quiet during the day unless disturbed. Ie had seen them hanging in 
clusters of ten or more in depth, but not covering so large an area as that 
mentioned by Mr. Bromiley. Large shooting parties were often effective in 
getting rid of flying-foxes, and he remembered eight years ago permanently 
getting rid of a small camp which had settled on his property by continually 
tormenting it in the daytime. He believed it had been suggested to have 
flying-foxes inoculated with chicken cholera, and he believed if some disease 
of that description could be once got among them that they would spread it 
among themselves, and in that way doubtless there would be a possibility of 
exterminating them. lle had heard the Agricultural Department had taken 
some action in that direction. 
Mr. Jos. Hupson (Rosewood) had had a flying-fox camp on his property 
like the one described by Mr. Bromiley. It had covered acres of ground, but 
it had been made to shift. The people in the neighbourhood in the daytime 
attacked and annoyed it day after day until it left the district. Half-a-dozen 
men in a few hours could shoot hundreds of foxes. Another way to get 
rid of the pest was by clearing the scrubs as fast as possible, for it was only in 
scrubs that flying-foxes camped. 
