REMARKS ABOUT RABBITS 119 



and swam the latter, until at last the attempt to confine 

 his sphere of operations has been practically abandoned. 



" Queensland alone, with a desperate system of wire 

 netting fences, still keeps up the hopeless battle. But it 

 was taken for granted that the arid, waterless desert 

 between South Australia and West Australia would prove 

 an insuperable barrier, and save one State, at least, from 

 the pest. 



"However, this hope was just as ill founded as the 

 others. A year or two ago it was announced that rabbits 

 had been seen on the gold-fields. 



u Since then the irrepressible bunny has increased and 

 spread, until, last week, the people of Esperance, a port 

 on the south coast some distance east of Albany, and the 

 centre of a fair area of good grazing country, asked the 

 Government to take steps to protect them from the 

 invader. They want a netting fence built to the east of 

 their district, or else, they say, a big tract of grazing 

 country will be ruined. The energy and fecundity of the 

 rabbit in this new country is amazing. Climate, soil and 

 surroundings all seem to suit him, and, like the old 

 pioneers, he has made up his mind to stay." 



The following paragraph, which I saw last autumn in 

 the Bristol Evening News, shows that rabbits are some- 

 times a trouble to rural districts in England : 



" PLAGUE OF RABBITS IN THE WEST 



" Farmers attending Tiverton Market, in Devonshire,, 

 yesterday brought gloomy stories of damage done to 



