824 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
The measures the neighbours adopted were simultaneous 
poisoning with phosphorized grain and the simultaneous turning- 
out of the natural enemy, chiefly the ferret. A few of us had 
been previously poisoning, and breeding and turning out ferrets, 
and some of us the domestic cat; but the Hon. Mr. Waterhouse 
was the first to turn out ferrets, some four or five years 
previously. In 1886 Mr. E. J. Riddiford preferred turning out 
stoats and weasels upon the land, and I think he turned out two 
to three hundred (one hundred stoats and two hundred weasels). 
From 1878 to 1888—say in the ten years of the pest—the 
measures taken, therefore, to grapple with the evil were hunting 
and shooting with dog and gun, poisoning with phosphorized 
grain, and the turning-out of cats, ferrets, stoats, and weasels. 
Seeing that we were turning out the natural enemies, I induced 
the settlers not to make use of traps. At the present moment 
so little is this question understood that a reference to Mr. 
Bayley’s (the Chief Rabbit Inspector of the colony) Annual 
Report for 1888 will show that the Government and every Rabbit 
Inspector are willingly allowing the use of traps in every other 
district of the colony. Of course this is almost fatal to the 
natural enemies. The use of traps must be absolutely prohibited. 
With regard to rabbit-proof fencing, I always thought it a 
weak thing, and I would have nothing to do with it. I preferred 
to reduce the pest upon my neighbours’ runs as the best method 
of protection for my own land. 
Time ran on; the rabbits were disappearing fast, the lands 
were becoming clear; and now a rather great factor of sup- 
pression appeared—I suppose I may say the greatest of all— 
viz., disease—bladder-worm or tape-worm of the dog, concerning 
which the facts are as follows:—Harly in the year 1886 I had 
noticed that my rabbiter’s pack of dogs were looking miserably- 
poor, half-starved, mangy skeletons. I spoke to the man, and 
told him that I could not allow him to keep his dogs in that 
condition. (I had now only one pack of dogs employed: 
formerly, in 1882, I had four. I think I sent home about one- 
quarter of a million skins during the pest.) I had previously 
noticed that a neighbour’s pack of dogs were in much better 
condition, and that neighbour’s rabbiter had told me that he 
gave his dogs areca-nut to relieve them of worms. I advised my 
rabbiter to give his dogs the same medicine, And, although 
