128 Proceeding.'! of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



populated with people, and that the rabbits were scattered 

 over wild and scarcely-populated districts. While the 

 microbes might kill rabbits in one burrow, how could the 

 disease be propagated for long distances ? Certain rabbits 

 would escape, and their fecundity was well known. Those 

 were matters for future consideration, but it was quite right 

 that a warning note should be sounded. 



Mr. BosiSTO thought the Society was greatl}-- indebted 

 to Dr. Wigg for bringing the matter forward, inasmuch as 

 the results of the introduction of the disease might be 

 very serious. Birds and animals might be affected by the 

 disease. He would lefer to Pasteur's experiments in the 

 19 acres already alluded to. It was well known that if 

 a field containinof a larj^e number of rabbits were walled 

 in the rabbits could be destroyed by means other than that 

 adopted by Pasteur, and just as rapidly as he destroyed 

 them. He (Mr. Bosisto) was not speaking ignorantlj?- on 

 this subject, as he himself had had to deal with l\h square 

 miles of Mallee country, on which he had seen tens of 

 thousands of rabbits — not altogether on that block, but in 

 and around it. By paying attention to the matter of 

 getting rid of them he had so far succeeded, that instead 

 of their now being thousands of rabbits on his land he did 

 not think that 500 could be found. Endeavours should 

 now be made to induce the owners of land throughout 

 A-Ustralia to rmdertake one uniform and regular system 

 of destruction. There were peculiar circumstances con- 

 nected with M. Pasteur's experiments in the 19-acre block. 

 Firstly, the rabbits had eaten up the whole of the 

 vegetation, so that when the clover, over which the liquid 

 containing the microbes had been spread, was placed in the 

 enclosure, they ate it greedily, and death resulted in a large 

 number of cases. He (Mr. Bosisto) and others in Victoria 

 had, in the dry seasons when the ground was bare, adopted 

 somewhat similar means, with equally good results as 

 regards the rabbits on this ground. In summer, when 

 there was plenty of green grass which the rabbits liked to 

 nip from the living plant, the only thing they found could 

 be done was to place bi-sulphide of carbon in the warrens ; 

 but when the ground was as bare as it was for M. Pasteur's 

 experiment then they killed them by thousands. Little 

 heaps of as much chaff as could be got into a tumbler were 

 placed near the warrens, and vipon those heaps were poured 

 a weak solution of arsenic. Simple as this remedy seemed. 



