Phillips. — Oit RaJ)h'd-discase. 313 



•certain to l)e there, if they have been tiuiUMl out, are greatly 

 injured, if uot killed outright, by the traps, and then there is 

 no check to the rabbits breeding up again in that particular 

 spot. Will any person in his senses say that a doe-ferret in 

 young is not greatly injured by being caught in a trap ? It is 

 the increase of these natural enemies that we must aim at. 



Poison certainly does great good and injures very little. 

 But certain rabbits go through the poisoning, and come out 

 harder and stronger than ever. This is always the case ; so 

 that more than one sharp winter poisoning m a year is higlily 

 injudicious. Summer poisoning is a wrong way to kill rabbits, 

 as this method simply doubles the number of rabbits that 

 become poison-proof. This only shows Nature's wonderful law 

 of preservation — that it is impossible for us to exterminate the 

 rabbit now that it is here. With all the density of their popu- 

 lations, neither Europe, Asia, Africa, nor America has been 

 able to exterminate the rabbit. Professor Thomas is quite 

 wrong, therefore, I regret to say, when he says that population 

 will reduce the pest. A great population is the friend of the 

 rabbit, strange to say, and the rabbit in return aflbrds that 

 population a great food-supply. In densely-pojmlated Belgium 

 the rabbits are numerous, also in England, Prussia, France. 

 There is a far greater chance of rabbits being swept off, say, 

 in North or South America, where there is little population, 

 and wolves, lynxes, and foxes i-oam about and scatter their 

 virulent tapeworms — far more fatal than the dog-worm. But 

 population clears off the wolves, lynxes, and foxes, and the 

 rabbit flourishes and skips about, and rather defies the stoat, 

 ferret, and weasel. At all events he is a match for these 

 three latter animals, and a very even balance is preserved. 

 But the rabbit is no match, as Sir James Hector points out, 

 against the tapeworm of the wolf, fox, or lynx of North or 

 South America. Every now and again, as the Indians say, 

 the rabbits are decimated by the bladder-worm disease : their 

 dead bodies strew the whole face of the country, none even 

 being left for food ; so that even good Dame Nature can be 

 sharp enough if the occasion demands it. 



Poison, of course, does good work, and no one need fear 

 that the natural enemies sufi'er from it — a few may die, but 

 not many. The great use of the natural enemy is, of course, 

 after the poisoning, when they eat up the young rabbits. No 

 dog or ferret can possibly resist a three-or-four-days-old 

 rabbit. This is a very toothsome and delicate morsel, and is 

 usually swallowed whole. Trapping, of course, ignores the 

 young rabbit, and allows it to breed up again ; and it assists the 

 rabbit in doing so when it kills or injures the natural enemy. 

 In England, if the owner of an estate wishes to preserve his 

 rabbits he gives his gamekeeper ordo's to " trap off i\\e 



