THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 



203 



looked with envy upon his rabbiters, who were heaping 

 up modest fortunes, while he himself was slowly being 

 eaten out of house and home. 



" The professional rabbiter is not an agreeable com- 

 panion. He is covered with the fluffy fur of his quarry 

 until he bears much of the appearance of a mouldy 

 cheese ; his clothing is streaked with blood and dirt, 

 and from his hair and beard, and, in fact, from his 

 entire person, exhales a strong leporine odor. Not until 

 he attains this consummation can he hope for the highest 

 success in his profession, for the game on which he wars 

 is gifted with keen sensibilities, and will avoid the trap 

 or the fatal phosphorized grain that has been placed in 

 its way by hands ordinarily clean. 



" The fecundity of the rabbit is amazing, and his 

 invasion of remote districts swift and mysterious. 

 Careful estimates show that, under favourable condi- 

 tions, a pair of Australian rabbits will produce six 

 litters a year, averaging five individuals each. As the 

 offspring themselves begin breeding at the age of six 

 months, it is shown that, at this rate, the original pair 

 might be responsible in five years for a progeny of over 

 twenty millions. That the original score that were 

 brought to the country have propagated after some 

 such ratio, no one can doubt who has seen the enormous 

 hordes that now devastate the land in certain districts. 

 In all but the remoter sections, however, the rabbits 

 are now fairly under control ; one rabbiter with a pack 

 of dogs supervises stations where one hundred were 

 employed ten years ago, and with ordinary vigilance 

 the squatters have little to fear. Millions of the animals 

 have been killed by fencing in the water holes and dams 

 during a dry season, whereby they died of thirst, and 

 lay in enormous piles against the obstructions they had 

 frantically and vainly striven to climb, and poisoned 



