DELIBERATE INTRODUCTION OF NEW ANIMALS 243 



improve upon the establishments of nature. Of many 

 instances, one need only recall the notorious case of the 

 introduction of one animal after another to Australia, to the 

 annoyance of the farmer and the detriment of the country. 

 Brought from Somerset by some well-meaning individual, 

 four pairs of Rabbits were set free in the neighbourhood of 

 Geelong in 1858. They found conditions so favourable, and 

 multiplied so rapidly, that already in 1875 an Act was 

 passed in New South Wales to encourage their extermina- 

 tion. Recently as many as 20,000 have been destroyed in 

 one or two days at a poison trap ; it was estimated that in 

 1917 the export of rabbit flesh to the United Kingdom from 

 New South Wales would amount to 1,250,000 crates con- 

 taining 30,000,000 individuals; the country is overrun, and 

 the destruction of grass is so great that the average stock 

 of sheep in New South Wales has fallen off by many millions 

 during the last quarter of a century. To keep the Rabbits 

 in check, Foxes were introduced and encouraged. They too 

 have so increased in numbers and are so destructive to lambs 

 that the Vermin Act of 1914 imposes on every landholder 

 the duty of killing them. In the year 1915-16, 679 were 

 slain. As a further check upon the Rabbits, Dogs, which 

 also had been introduced, were largely employed, but they, 

 too, having become wild, and with increased numbers having 

 developed a taste for domestic flesh, have fallen under the 

 ban of legislation, so that under the Vermin Acts of 1912 

 and 1914, rewards have been paid in New South Wales alone 

 for the slaughter of 75,000 wild Dogs. 



GENERAL RESULTS OF INTRODUCTION OF NEW ANIMALS 



The case of the Rabbit in Australia is only one of 

 many similar cases, and it does no more thaa represent in 

 extreme the result of any successful experiment in foisting 

 an alien beneficiary upon a native fauna, which has settled 

 its differences and has become established as regards the 

 inter-relations of its own members and the food supply of its 

 country. 



Should alien stock be introduced with success the animal 

 life of a country alters appreciably, in so far as the import 

 is conspicuous or increases greatly in numbers or comes 



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