382 ELEMENTS OF GENEKAL SCIENCE 



Another great pest to the settlers is developing in the foxes, 

 two of which were imported from Cumberland some years ago by 

 a wealthy station owner, who thought that they might breed and 

 give himself and friends an occasional day with the hounds. His 

 modest desires were soon met in the development of a race of 

 foxes far surpassing the English variety in strength and aggressive- 

 ness, which not only devour many sheep, but out of pure depravity 

 worry and kill ten times as many as they can eat. When to these 

 plagues is added the ruin of thousands of acres from the spread 

 of the thistle, which a canny Scot brought from the Highlands to 

 keep alive in his breast the memory of Wallace and Bruce, and 

 in New Zealand the blocking up of rivers by the English water 

 cress, which in its new home grows a dozen feet in length and has 

 to be dredged out to keep navigation open, it may be understood 

 the colonials look with jaundiced 'eye upon suggestions of any 

 further interference with Australian nature. 



Not to be outdone by foreign importations, the country itself 

 has shown in the humble locust a nuisance quite as potent as 

 rabbit, fox, or thistle. This bane of all men who pasture sheep 

 on grass has not been much in evidence until within the last few 

 years, when the great destruction of indigenous birds by the gun 

 and by poisoned grain strewn for rabbits has facilitated its increase. 

 The devastation caused by these insects last year was enormous, 

 and befell a district a thousand miles long and two thousand miles 

 wide. For days they passed in clouds that darkened the sky with 

 the gloomy hue of an eclipse, while the ground was covered with 

 crawling millions, devouring every green thing, and giving to the 

 country the appearance of being carpeted with scales. It has been 

 discovered, however, that before they attain their winged state 

 they can easily be destroyed, and energetic measures will be taken 

 against them throughout all the inhabited districts of Australia 

 whenever they make another appearance. 



