THE ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETY.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIII, Issue 3118, 15 July 1867, Page 4

THE ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETY.

To the Editor of the Daily Southern Cross. Sib,— l am inclined to agree in the advisability of destroying cuts and hawks. The cat is of the order of ferae or carnivora (flesh-eating) animals, genus, felis ; it much prefers seeking its food among the , bird tribe by day, climbing trees with the facility of the monkey, to hunting for rats by night, and whose habitation is safe underground. Nests are all at the mercy of the cat and hawk, no matter where they may be built. The rat occasionally does mischief to a nest on the ground — they are few — but he nerer climbs trees. Tha hawk, order of raptores (birds of prey), genus faloo, are eminently active, keen-sighted, long-lived, and have no enemy that is at all able to oppose them, but man ; they subsist solely on flesh, chiefly birds, and hunt by day, when rats are not to be seen. The owl differs quite from the cat and hawk, and on the whole is more useful than hurtful, and should be spared j he flies by night, and to a great extent really does live on rats and mice, and is a far better mouser in a stack-yard than the tame domestic cat. In comparison with the cat and hawk, the rat here is perfectly harmless, being of the orderof rodentia (gnawers), genus graminivorous, feeding on grain and roots. They amount to millions in large cities, and act as scavengers, living in sewers. They belong to the same harmless family as the rabbit, squirrel, guinea pig, Sec, that have two large front teeth, for gnawing everything that comes in their way. They multiply here because of the quantity of suitable food — fern root, &c. Gamekeepers at home, men professionally observant, and brought up to the business one generation after another, have no Wo opinions about cats and hawks, as the walls of the stable-yards, covered with crucified malefactors, testify. I think all the productions of Italy and Spain would flourish here better than English crops. The cork tree, walnut, chesnut, so gar maple of Canada, mulberry for silk-worms, olive, <fee— all these are easily grown, and give a large return.— l am, Ac.,