32G THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the methods hitherto employed were ineffectual, because they 

 affected only the individual Rabbits actually killed by direct 

 contact of poison, trap, or shot, and extended no further. What 

 was needed, he considered, was the administration of something 

 fatal which could be communicated, as a contagion, and spread 

 throughout the entire Eabbit population of whole districts. This 

 medium he believes he has discovered in the so-called "chicken 

 cholera" (cholera des ponies), which may be communicated by a 

 cultivation of the microbes producing it, which may then be 

 introduced amongst the vegetation on which the Eabbits feed. 

 Experience has shown that the occasional ravages of this 

 epidemic in poultry-yards is undoubtedly due to the droppings 

 of the fowls first affected, which contaminate the soil and the 

 food thrown upon it ; and further experiment has demonstrated 

 that Eabbits are liable to be affected by this disease by watering 

 their food with a liquid charged with microbes obtained by 

 boiling down food already contaminated. 



In a communication addressed in January last to the Agent- 

 General for the Colonies, M. Pasteur detailed various experiments 

 which he had made upon Eabbits, first in hutches, and then in 

 open, enclosed spaces, the result of which went to show the 

 soundness of the views he had expressed. 



On Nov. 27th he put five Eabbits in a hutch, and left them 

 unfed until six o'clock in the evening. At' 6 p.m., some cabbage- 

 leaves which had been soaked in a liquor charged with the 

 cholera-microbes were thrown into them, and were devoured in a 

 few minutes. At midnight three fresh Eabbits, uncontaminated, 

 were put in with them. The following morning at 8 o'clock the 

 five Eabbits experimented upon appeared ill; at 11 o'clock two 

 were dead, and at 3 p.m. the remaining three died. At 

 seven in the evening one of the three introduced the previous 

 midnight was found dead ; the other two were not affected. 



This experiment was repeated. On Dec. 3rd four more Eabbits 

 were fed with infected cabbage-leaves, and at midnight four 

 others were introduced, and not fed. The next day the former 

 all died, and their dead bodies being allowed to remain in the 

 hutch, the remaining four all died at intervals. These were 

 tame Eabbits. On December 17th a wild Eabbit was similarly 

 treated, and was found dead the next day. In every case it 

 was demonstrated that death was due to the cholera microbe. 



