1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. ir 



The Rabbit Plague in the United States. 



The great plains and deserts of the Western United States are 

 inhabited by several species of large hares, locally known as " Jack 

 Rabbits." Although they are by no means so destructive or so 

 impc5ssible to cope with as are the rabbits in Australia, they are 

 sufficiently abundant to do great damage, especially to vineyards and 

 cultivated crops. The National Department of Agriculture has 

 recently issued a bulletin bearing the name of T. S. Palmer, M.D., 

 the assistant chief of division, and dealing with the whole question 

 of damage, habits, and means of destruction. It is illustrated by- 

 useful maps and plates, and, like all the bulletins of the Agricultural 

 Department of the United States, makes us mourn the inefficiency of 

 what we are pleased to call our own Department of Agriculture. 



The various species of " Jack Rabbits " are all more or less 

 aHke in habits, and all feed largely upon bark or herbage. " Among 

 the greasewood on the alkali flats, north-west of Great Salt Lake, or 

 on the cactus-covered deserts of Arizona, the Jack Rabbits are 

 almost as fat and sleek as when feeding in the alfalfa patches and 

 vineyards of Southern California. If necessary, they can travel long 

 distances for food, but, as they seldom drink, scarcity of water causes 

 them little inconvenience, and the juicy cactus ' pads ' or ordinary 

 desert herbage furnish all the moisture necessary to slake their thirst. 

 They are fond of vegetables and alfalfa, and, when these can be had, 

 they quickly abandon their usual food and establish themselves near 

 the garden or cultivated field. Their fondness for tender bark makes 

 them particularly destructive in the orchard and vineyard, where they 

 are likely to do irreparable injury by girdling the young fruit trees 

 and vines." The best means of preventing their ravages, and the 

 only means which may be relied upon, is the use of rabbit-proof 

 fences. Occasionally, under favourable circumstances, large numbers 

 may be destroyed by drives. Descriptions of some of the largest 

 drives are given in this pamphlet, and it seems that twenty thousand 

 have been killed at a time. But such methods only reduce numbers ; 

 they cannot exterminate the pests. Bounty laMrs were found on the 

 whole to be unsatisfactory, as indeed, is the Australian experience. 

 Enormous sums of money have been expended with very little benefit, 

 and it seems impossible to prevent systematic fraud. Poisoning and 

 the introduction of diseases have failed, and it appears that co- 

 operation among farmers is the best means, while advantage should 

 be taken of opportunities when the rabbits are already reduced in 

 numbers by natural epidemics or by specially hard seasons. The 

 Report urges strongly the commercial utilisation of rabbits, so making 

 the creatures bear part of the burden of their own extermination. 



A Danger of Clover. 

 The intestinal calculi and hair balls of horses and cattle are well 

 known, but Mr. F. V. Coville, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 



