174 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



I was much impressed with the genial and 

 generous hospitality of the squatters I met. Many of 

 them were distinguished by a genuine love of art, of 

 science, and of literature. Not a few displayed a 

 remarkable intellectual resiliency. They all looked 

 like prosperous men, and they behaved as such. 

 Their rosy faces and cheery juvenile laughter were 

 indicative of happy lives spent in the open air. And 

 such open air ! I fervently wished I could export 

 some of it to dear old England, for the benefit of the 

 toiling multitudes in our factories, foundries, and 

 mines. 



Even in Victoria there is yet land to be cleared. 

 A belt of untouched forest land extends along the 

 coast from Geelong to Warnambool, a distance of 

 about 200 miles. Only a few settlers have as yet 

 invaded this unknown region from the landward 

 side. The main area is still as wild and primeval as 

 if white men had never landed in Australia. The 

 wild dogs (dingoes), kangaroos, and emus still hold 

 this almost unassailed natural fortress. It is almost 

 their last refuge in Victoria. In a few years they 

 will have joined the mysterious group of aboriginal 

 animals which have become extinct within the period 

 of written history. 



I had the satisfaction of spending a few days in the 

 forest, and of seeing the process of "clearing " going 

 on. It is good for one to come out into a district 

 like this, and to learn how much has to be done 

 before wild nature becomes docile and tame — how 

 the trees have to be felled, ring-barked, burnt, and 

 stubbed up ; how the swamps have to be drained, 

 and roads made ; and how there is nothing else 

 which can do all this except strong human hands, 

 moved thereto and supported in the often dis- 

 appointing work by still stronger faith and persever- 

 ance ! 



Our own country underwent the same kind of 

 clearing in the early days of Saxons and Normans, 

 as we may see in Kingsley's " Hereward the Wake," 

 and Green's "Making of England;" and I could 

 quote passages from both books concerning the forest- 

 clearing of ancient England which would apply 

 almost unaltered to modern Australia. 



The friend with whom I stayed had just enclosed 

 about one hundred square miles of the forest, and the 

 fencing alone had cost /"So a mile. Now it is all 

 easy work to fence and clear, for there is no native 

 difficulty to contend with. But in the ancient history 

 >f the colony (less than fifty years ago) all this had to 

 be done in the midst of hostile natives. 



Moreover, the squatters do not get it all their own 

 way, even though the blacks do not] interfere. If 

 Englishmen cannot find natural enemies to fight 

 against, they create artificial ones. Anyhow, they 

 must be fighting ! For instance, there is the rabbit — 

 a poor inoffensive animal, which in England has to 

 be protected by an extension of the Game Laws. 

 We are apt to smile at such a creature being 



dangerous, for we think of its diminutive burrows, 

 although we also remember its liking for young corn 

 crops. But a person can form no idea of the de- 

 structiveness of the rabbit until he goes to Australia. 

 A reward of ^10,000 has been offered for the best 

 means of exterminating it. Three rich and powerful 

 Australian colonies are engaged unsuccessfully in the 

 task. And yet the man who brought out the first 

 brace of rabbits is still alive to see the results of his 

 own mistaken zoological benevolence. 



Poisoning, by means of phosphorised grain, is 

 found to be the most effective means of keeping the 

 rabbits down. One of the squatters at whose station 

 I was visiting told me he had poisoned 40x30 in a 

 paddock of 600 acres in the space of four days. 

 Indeed, the rabbit war is costing Australia as much 

 as a little Russian war would. The rabbit can breed 

 all the year round in that country, for the climate 

 allows it, and there is a superabundance of food. In 

 Europe it is limited to from six to nine months, and 

 here it has numerous natural enemies to keep it 

 down. I was not more completely astonished at the 

 Antipodes by anything than the remarkable manner 

 with which the introduced rabbits have adapted 

 themselves to their new environment, and have 

 utilised their new experience. With us in England 

 the rabbit lives rather a humdrum kind of life — in 

 Australia it has the world to choose from, and it 

 usually chooses the better part. In this country the 

 rabbit is a steady-going, unalterable Conservative — 

 in Australia it is an out-and-out Radical, going in for 

 new measures and new habits almost every day. It 

 may sound very much like drawing the traveller's 

 "long-bow" when I relate that in Australia the 

 rabbits climb walls (built at enormous expense under 

 the delusion that they were "rabbit-proof"), and 

 that they run up -and hide in the numerous hollow 

 trees as if they were opossums ; that they, so tender 

 of wet feet here, in Australia have overcome the 

 prejudice, and take to the water and swim across 

 rivers like water-rats. But every Victorian squatter 

 will bear me out, that such is the way in which the 

 rabbits of his colony comport themselves. 



Whilst I am speaking of the singular way in which 

 the rabbit has changed, and is still engaged in 

 changing, the habits of its kind, it may not be 

 out of place to offer a few remarks on other natural 

 history variations which are also going on. We have 

 so long held the notion that what we call instinct 

 never changes, that we are surprised to hear of our 

 familiar English wild animals learning new habits 

 in new countries. All of these facts are of the 

 intensest interest to the naturalist. In them he 

 sees the processes of evolution and natural selection 

 still going on. 



Cerebrally demoralised as English sheep and 

 cattle have been, because man has taken care of 

 them instead of leaving them to themselves, in 

 Australia it is remarkable how they also have learned 



