REMARKS ABOUT RABBITS 127 



what is a popular article of food, and with a practically 

 increasing demand for the skins of the little animals, it 

 has always seemed to me, instead of wringing their hands 

 and calling down curses on what they called the " terrible 

 scourge of rabbits," they should at once have turned to 

 account what is proving, and will prove, a source of con- 

 siderable monetary advantage : 



" At one time rabbits, when there was practically no 

 demand for their skins or carcases, cost the Australian 

 squatters hundreds of thousands of pounds annually to 

 destroy. 



" But at present men in the Commonwealth engaged 

 in trapping them, also hares, kangaroos, wallabies, 

 foxes, opossums and native bears, earn over half a 

 million sterling. 



"Twenty millions of Australian rabbit skins were 

 sold in London last year, representing an actual money 

 value of i 1,000 in cash. 



" Besides which, 600 bales containing 1,600,000 skins 

 were sent to France, while over two and a half million 

 rabbits, frozen, with their skins on, were shipped to 

 England from Victoria alone. 



<c Thus in 1901 the trappers' account for some 

 4,000,000 of rabbits sent to Europe, besides a large 

 Colonial consumption, represented a money value of 

 nearly a quarter of a million sterling." 



