THE RABBIT PEST AT THE ANTIPODES. 327 



On Dec. 3rd and following days experiments were made on 

 pigs, dogs, goats, sheep, rats, horses, and donkeys, in every 

 case by feeding them with similarly contaminated food. Not 

 one of these animals was affected. 



Then followed an experiment on a large scale in the open 

 air. Madame Pommery, of Eheims (whose name is well known 

 in connection with the celebrated Champagne vineyards, of which 

 she is the proprietor), having read M. Pasteur's letter in ' Le 

 Temps,'' wrote to say that she had an enclosed rabbit-warren 

 of about twenty acres, in which the Eabbits had increased so 

 enormously, and had so undermined the walls, that she was 

 anxious to do away with it, and if he pleased to make any experi- 

 ments there, it was at his service. This being the very thing for 

 his purpose, he accepted the offer, and his experiment was facili- 

 tated by the fact that the proprietor of the warren, with a view to 

 prevent the Rabbits from trying to burrow out of the enclosure in 

 search of food beyond the walls, had been latterly in the habit of 

 throwing down, just outside the holes, heaps of lucerne and hay, 

 on which they fed greedily. Nothing then was easier than to 

 water this food with the microbe-bearing fluid, and the Eabbits 

 were at once inoculated. This was done on Friday, Dec. 23rd, 

 1887. On the 26th Madame Pommery wrote : — 



" On Saturday (in consequence of the fatal repast of the previous day) 

 nineteen dead Rabbits were found outside the burrows. On Sunday the 

 enclosure was not visited. On Monday morning thirteen more dead 

 Rabbits were counted, and since Saturday not a single live Rabbit has 

 been seen moving. Moreover, a little snow had fallen during the night, 

 and not a footprint of any Rabbit was to be observed." 



As a rule, they die in their holes, and the thirty-two dead 

 ones which were picked up outside may therefore be regarded 

 as a very small proportion of those destroyed. On Tuesday, 

 Dec. 27th Madame Pommery wrote : — 



" The lucerne placed outside the burrows on Monday eveuing has 

 not been touched, and again no trace of footprints is perceptible on the 

 snow. All are dead." 



As to the number of Eabbits destroyed by this experiment, 

 it is scarcely possible to fix it exactly, but M. Pasteur was 

 informed by the men emplo.yed at the warren that that they 

 estimated the number that formerly came out of an evening to 



