PLAGUE OF RABBITS IN AUSTRALIA 
loss from enemies and disease. The original European wild 
rabbit is grayish brown, becoming foxy on the neck, but this 
rabbit has been domesticated since ancient times, and altera- 
tions of coloring as well as of form have been produced. Ten 
or more distinct breeds are recognized by fanciers, some of 
which, as the lop-eared, the great Belgian, and the Angora, 
are far away from the original type. All are described, and 
methods of rearing and caring for rabbits are taught in sev- 
eral books by Knight,’° Morant,’! and other fanciers. 
Their amazing fecundity has caused rabbits to multiply into an almost 
uncontrollable pest since they were unwisely introduced into Australia and 
New Zealand, where the scarcity of beasts of prey allowed them to increase 
without bounds." In a few years, therefore, the whole country was over- 
run by millions, which threatened to devour not only all the crops but every 
bit of wild herbage; even in Europe, when for any reason their subjection is 
neglected, they do great damage to gardens, orchards, and plantations of 
young trees. Writing about 1895, Dr. Lydekker recorded the result of 
the introduction of a few rabbits about 1850 into Australia, and about 1875 
into New Zealand, as follows: — 
“The inhabitants of the colony soon found that the rabbits were a plague, 
for they devoured the grass which was needed for the sheep, the bark of 
trees, and every kind of fruit and vegetables, until . . . ruin seemed inevitable. 
In New South Wales upwards of fifteen million rabbit-skins have been ex- 
ported in a single year; while in the thirteen years ending in 1889 no less 
than thirty-nine million were accounted for in Victoria alone. To prevent 
the increase of these rodents, the introduction of weasels, stoats, mungooses, 
etc., has been tried; but it has been found that these carnivores neglected 
the rabbits and took to feeding on poultry, and thus became as great a 
nuisance as the animals they were intended to destroy. The attempt to 
kill them off by the introduction of an epidemic disease has also failed. In 
order to protect such portions of the country as are still free from rabbits, 
fences of wire netting have been erected, one of these fences erected by the 
government of Victoria extending for a distance upwards of one hundred 
and fifty geographical miles. In New Zealand... its increase has been so 
enormous, and the destruction it inflicts so great, that in some districts it 
has actually been a question whether the colonists should not vacate the 
country rather than attempt to fight against the plague.” 
At present further use is being made of the rabbits by “packing” their 
edible flesh in various forms as an article of preserved food, which is finding 
a wide market; and probably the pest will be abated in course of time by 
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