308 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Akt. XXXV. — Eabbit-disease in the South Wairarapa. 



By Coleman Phillips. 



[^Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 2ncl OcfoheVy 



1SS9.] 



Pkofessok Thomas has finished his full report upon the para- 

 sitic diseases affecting rabbits in the Wairarapa district, and it 

 has been presented to Parliament. It is to be regretted that the 

 paper cannot be included in the " Transactions " of this Insti- 

 tute. As a zoological paper it is an excellent one, and had 

 Professor Thomas confined himself to that aspect of the 

 question I should have been the last person to take excep- 

 tion to it. But his analogies, deductions, and summaries are 

 quite wrong and misleading. It is to prevent the harm that 

 they must do that I venture to criticize his report. He must 

 kindly excuse my doing so. 



In the beginning of the report and at its conclusion Pro- 

 fessor Thomas emphatically says that "the most valuable 

 measm'es taken to reduce the pest have been winter poisoning 

 and trapping," &c. x\ll I can say in reply is that in the North 

 Wairarapa, wliere poisoning and trapping have been relied upon, 

 the rabbits are worse now than ever they were. Trapping, 

 indeed, is a most fatal mistake. We never resorted to it, 

 but carefully avoided it, in the South Wairarapa when we 

 conquered the pest during the years 1884-87. 



With regard to bladder-worm, Professor Thomas regards 

 it only as a "minor and auxiliary means of destruction," 

 " although it may be usefully employed against the rabbit- 

 pest. "•■' " The employment of liver-coccidea for the destruction 

 of rabbits cannot be advocated ; " " but the disease may be of 

 further use in killing rabbits." (There is a confusion hei-e 

 which can only result from Professor Thomas's non-acquaint- 

 ance with the practical working of rabbit-suppression.) Eab- 

 bit-scab (the louse-mite — Sarcoptes cuniculi) and the rabbit- 

 louse {Ilceiiiatopinus rentricosus) — two diseases— are dismissed 

 as of no practical importance whatever. Yet each one of 

 these four diseases was upon my run and in my district, and 

 to them as much as to any other of the remedies used I 

 ascribe the magical disappearance of rabbits in South Wairarapa 

 in 1885-86 and the conquest of the pest. The other remedies 

 we used were — (1) simultaneous action through a voluntary 

 Local Board of Government ; (2) winter poisoning ; (3) the 

 turning-out of the natural enemy (cats, ferrets, stoats, and 



* I must say that I found this disease most useful in enabling me to 

 conquer the pest and keep it at its minimum, as I shall show later on. 



