1 Juny, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 141 
boards and agricultural societies that they could form boards for the eradication 
of the pest, and that the Department would subsidise money expended for that 
purpose. A board was formed in Beenleigh, and £5 each was contributed to 
it by the Beenleigh, Waterford, and Tingalpa Divisonal Boards and the 
Agricultural and Pastoral Society of Southern Queensland. This made £20, 
and we informed the residents that we would give 13d. per head for each fox 
brought in to thesecretary. The Department gave us a subsidy of £9 7s. 10d., 
and up to the present we have destroyed 5,729 flying foxes, at a total cost of 
£35 16s. 1d. 
Mr. A. T. Coomper (Bundaberg): [ must congratulate Mr. Dalton on his 
paper, and I can bear out his statements relative to the destructive propensities 
of flying foxes, especially with regard to mangoes. I know they destroy 
enormous quantities of this fruit belonging to me. As for divisional 
boards taking the matter up, I think that the money collected by the boards is 
for the purpose of making roads, and that it ought to be devoted to that 
purpose. ‘To take any of that money for any other purpose would hardly be 
fair to the other ratepayers. The best line is to ask the Department of 
Agriculture to take it up and try and find some specific that will kill the foxes. 
I would suggest that they be destroyed in their camps with some poison, but 
1 do not think that anything useful will ever be done if the matter is left to 
the divisional boards.’ 
Mr. L. G. Corrte (Brisbane): There is one difficulty in connection with 
this flying fox question, and that is, in some seasons they are very bad, possibly 
through the absence of some natural food in the bush, and then for a year or 
two they cause very little trouble. I remember going to Mr. Thynne to see 
if the Government could give any assistance. Mr. Thynne laid down. very 
distinctly that the Government would do nothing unless the fruitgrowers were 
prepared to put some of their own money into it. He laid down that there 
was not much difference between it and the rabbit difficulty. 
Mr. Datrympre: Or the cockatoo difficulty. 
Mr. Corrte: £1,000 were placed on the Estimates to subsidise 
local effort, but as far as I can remember there were only one or two 
applications for any of that money. A difficulty is that the flying foxes camp 
in one division and do their damage in another. My own opinion is that unless 
there is co-operation among the fruitgrowers there is very little chance of 
dealing with the pest. I ama grower, have been injured by flying foxes, and 
I am quite prepared to pay my share towards some scheme for their extermi- 
nation. The matter affects us, and if we get rid of them, the small expenditure 
we incur by so doing will be repaid by tke increased yield from our trees. The 
Government have men of skill, and I think they are willing to assist us. Mr. 
Pound has done much, and will perhaps be able todo more. If you can actually 
locate a camp and can shiftit, you have a respite for the rest of theseason. I 
remember a case where, in Fiji, a lot of damage was being done to the banana 
plantations. ‘The flying foxes’ camp was found to be on a small island whither 
_the planters sallied ont and kicked up such a hubbubthat they drove the foxes 
off that island, and for years after had no trouble from them. There was a 
suggestion about bursting the camps up with lyddite, but I do think the best 
thing of ali would be to find out some disease of the flying fox that could be 
cultivated and disseminated through them. A Mr. Reed, from Samoa, said that 
such a disease had been successful there in destroying large numbers of flying 
foxes. He came to Queensland, and I remember I had enormous trouble in 
getting him some live flying foxes. I got him a few in the end, but I do not 
know how his experiments turned out. He did not come back to me, and I 
have heard his experiments were a failure. The mature flying fox has got a 
very pretty piece of brown fur, and if that could be cured and sent home, and 
there was a certainty of a lot of it being supplied, possibly the payment for the 
scalp could be eked out if the skin could be shown to be of commercial value. 
I think it would be worth while to send some of the fur to England to see if 
it could not be made an article of value. 
