34 president's address. 



at a very early date. An Act was passed, in 1605, by Queen Eliza- 

 beth, dealing with the unlawful hunting of deer and conies. In the 

 reign of George III., persons stealing rabbits from unenclosed 

 warrens, could be transported for seven years, "or suffer such other 

 lesser punishment by whipping, fine or imprisonment as the Court 

 shall at their discretion award and direct." 



We have no accurate account of when the first rabbits reached 

 this country, but the first record of their existence in Australia is 

 to be found in Captain Stokes' "Discoveries in Australia" (Vol. ii., 

 p. 426). Speaking of Corner Inlet, Victoria, he says: "During the 

 examination of this great useless sheet of water, the ship lay near 

 a small islet, close to the promontory, about seven miles from the 

 entrance, which, from the abundance of rabbits, we called Rabbit 

 Island. I have since learnt that these animals multiplied from a 

 single pair, turned loose by a praiseworthy sealer, six years before, 

 and encourages me to expect a similar result from the gift I had 

 bestowed on Kent Group." Thus, though not on the mainland, 

 they were plentiful quite close to Wilson's Promontory seventy 

 years ago. Mr. J. H. Kershaw, who first called my attention to 

 this record, informs me that the descendants of these rabbits are 

 still plentiful, but, through inbreeding, have all become much 

 smaller than those on the mainland, and are almost black in colour. 



There were, doubtless, many attempts made to acclimatise the 

 rabbit in Australia. In 1858, a colony was established on the 

 Upper Murray, which, after flourishing for three years, died out. 

 It appears that, in 1860, the rabbit, as a wild free animal, was 

 unknown in Victoria, for, in a Prize Essay on Agriculture, printed 

 at that date, the author (Mr. Storey) advocated the introduction of 

 the wild English variety. 



It has been generally asserted that the progenitors of the present 

 plague rabbits were liberated between Geelong and Colac, by a 

 well-known landholder, for sport, sometime between 1864 and 

 1870 ; but the exact date will always be a matter of doubt, for no 

 one is anxious to claim the distinction. The President of the 

 Acclimatisation Society of Victoria, at the Annual Meeting in 

 1890, while noting the spread of the rabbit, "desired to state that 



