88 MAMMALIA 



bility of their introduction. Thus the framer of the annual report 

 of the Canterbury Society for 1889, not having read the statement 

 in the report for 1866, says concerning " the rabbit, that great scourge 

 to our large runholders, — ^that the introduction of these cannot be 

 laid to the charge of this society." Similarly Mr Bathgate of Dunedin, 

 in 1897, writes : " It is to them " (the Provincial Government of South- 

 land) "that we are indebted for the presence of the rabbit." Dr 

 Menzies was in these early days Superintendent of the Province of 

 Southland. From 1866 onwards the spread of the rabbits was phe- 

 nomenal. I quote Mr Begg's account at length : 



About the year 1874 they began to make their presence felt in an un- 

 pleasant manner. By 1878 they had reached Lake Wakatipu, leaving a 

 devastated country behind them. At the same time they had reached as 

 far east as the Clutha River, and in a few years later had overrun the 

 greater part of Otago as well as the whole of Southland. Those were evil 

 days for farmers, especially for the squatters who occupied large areas of 

 grazing country. The fine natural grasses on which sheep and cattle grazed 

 were almost totally destroyed. Sheep perished from starvation by hundreds 

 of thousands, and it is no exaggeration to say that the majority of the 

 squatters were ruined. In the old Burwood Station the number of sheep 

 fell in one year from 1 10,000 to about 30,000. This was partly due to heavy 

 snow, but the rabbits prevented any recovery. It is doubtful if the same 

 country to-day carries more than 40,000 sheep. From the year 1878 onwards 

 immense areas of grazing land were abandoned, as the owners gave up the 

 unequal struggle with the rabbits. At first no eff'orts seemed to have the 

 slightest effect in stemming the invasion, or in reducing the numbers of 

 the rabbits. The wet country in the South suffered equally with the dry 

 lands of the interior, but the former is now showing a power of recovery 

 from the damage done, while in much of the latter the damage appears to 

 be almost irreparable. 



In the early days, hunting with dogs, shooting, digging out the warrens, 

 poisoning with various baits, and trapping, were the methods by which 

 farmers tried to rid themselves of the pest. Later, wire-netting fencing, 

 the introduction of stoats, weasels and ferrets, fumigating the burrows with 

 poisonous gases (such as Carbon disulphide and Hydrocyanic Acid) and the 

 stimulus given to trapping by the export trade in frozen rabbits, have been 

 relied upon to reduce their numbers. In the writer's experience, practically 

 no progress was made in reducing the numbers of rabbits till about the 

 year 1895. From that year there has been a steady diminution. For twenty 

 years the rabbit had the upper hand, and though many millions were 

 killed annually, no reduction in their abundance was noticeable. In the 

 last twenty years there has been a steady decrease. Large areas of hill 

 country in the wetter districts are now completely clear of rabbits, though 

 they still persist in favourable situations. In the dry country in Central 

 Otago they are still very troublesome and very vigorous, and their evil 

 effects are there seen on hundreds of square miles of country, once the 

 finest grazing land in New Zealand, now little better than a desert. 



