The original flock of sheep which formed the chief part of the stock owned by the Henty family was formed in Sussex at the end of the eighteenth century, taken out to Jamaica, then, later on, transferred to Portland by Edward Henty. To this flock many of the best of the Victorian sheep owe their origin, merinoes, also originally imported from England, being brought down from New South Wales by Captain Macarthur. In 1836 there were, officially, 41,332 sheep in Victoria—or Port Phillip. By 1842 the number had risen to 1,404,333, from which the number went on increasing by leaps and bounds till, in 1891, it reached 12,692,843, when the run of dry seasons, which lasted till 1901, decreased the flock to 10,841,790. The enormous rate at which the value of the export of wool increased may be gathered from the fact that between the years 1837—the year following the settlement of the Henty family in Portland—and 1840, five years after Faulkner’s settlement on the bank of the Yarra, and six years before the recognition of Victoria as a separate colony—this value rose from £11,639 to £67,902. In but one more year it leapt up to £85,735; while in 1908–09 the total value of the wool-clip in Victoria, with wool stripped from Victorian skins and exported on skins, has been estimated at £3,556,168, the weight of wool from the Western District sheep alone weighing 27,708,920 pounds. The first live stock landed by Captain Phillips in Australia, in 1788, comprised 7 horses, 6 cattle, 29 sheep, 12 pigs, and a few goats. Four months later the live stock in the colony were estimated, in a letter from Captain Phillips to Lord Sydney, Secretary of State for the Colonies, as follows:—“7 horses, 7 cattle, 29 sheep, 74 pigs, 18 turkeys, 29 geese, 35 ducks, 205 fowls, and 5 _rabbits_”—so that Mr. Austin was not the first, or the only, culprit in respect to Master Bunny.