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years destroying 60 tons, which is equivalent to 4680 

 million locusts. But it is not only in the countries of 

 Europe, Asia, and Africa that these animal plagues 

 are met with. The British settlers in Australia are 

 complaining bitterly now of indigenous and intro- 

 duced pests. They encountered at first one or two 

 formidable ones in the [dingos and marsupials, but 

 have found a more serious and extensive one in the 

 rabbits introduced from England, whose vast multi- 

 plication and ravages have become intolerable. While 

 in Europe we esteem and propagate this rodent for 

 its flesh as food, in Australasia, where larger live 

 stock are so abundant, they set little value on its 

 flesh. In the United Kingdom some 30,000,000 of 

 hares and rabbits are used up, worth over 2,000,000/. 

 sterling. The rabbits bred annually in Belgium are 

 valued at 480,000/., and we import annually 144,000 

 cwt. of foreign rabbits, worth about 400,000/. The 

 kangaroo plague has always been a great nuisance to 

 the Australian squatters, for on an average these 

 animals consume as much grass as a sheep. It is 

 stated that on a sheep-run of 60,000 to 80,000 acres, 

 10,000 kangaroos were killed annually for six con- 

 secutive years, and yet their numbers remained very 

 formidable in the locality. In the colony of South 

 Australia hundreds of thousands of kangaroos are 

 slaughtered annually for their skins, and the bonus 

 offered by the authorities. The number of these 

 marsupials in New South Wales in 1S89 was estimated 

 to be over 4,000,000, and yet about half a million 

 kangaroos and 650,000 wallabies were destroyed in 

 the colony in that year. A bonus of &d. for each 

 kangaroo "killed is offered in Australia ; hence the 

 colonists are gradually exterminating these native 

 animals ; over half a million skins are annually 

 shipped to England, and a large number to North 

 America, to be converted into leather. The Macro- 

 pidae include several kinds of kangaroos and wallabies. 

 The progress of settlement in Australia has driven 

 these animals from the more densely populated parts 

 of the Australian continent, but, in the country and 

 unsettled districts, they are still numerous enough to 

 cause very considerable damage to the natural grasses. 

 So serious has been the injury thus wrought, that the 

 colonial governments and run-holders pay a small sum 

 per head for the destruction of the kangaroos. The 

 acclimatisation of the more useful European species 

 quickly follows the destruction of indigenous animals, 

 and the wilds of the interior of Australia, which were 

 formerly the abode solely of the dingo and kangaroo, 

 are now the home of vast flocks and herds. Seeing 

 how largely we are dependent for our wool-supply on 

 Australasia, any check to that production is very 

 serious. As there are now 100,000,000 sheep in 

 Australasia, furnishing us with 430,000,000 pounds 

 of wool annually, besides their skins and mutton, the 

 steady progress of sheep husbandry is important. The 

 number of kangaroo skins shipped from Melbourne 

 in the last fourteen years exceeded 1,000,000; besides 



the large number used up in the local tanneries, where 

 they realise about 3^. a skin. At the public leather 

 sales in London on one day in May last year, nearly 

 3000 kangaroo skins were sold. The wallabies are a 

 smaller species of marsupial than the kangaroo, and 

 belong to two distinct genera, Halmaturus and Petro- 

 gale. Some 60,000 or 70,000 of these are annually 

 shipped from Australia as furs. The skins of the 

 Australian opossum are very handsome, and their 

 thick soft fur affords a valuable article of commerce, 

 being employed like hare skins for chest protectors, 

 and lately for making gloves. About 2,000,000 

 opossum skins are exported annually from Australia. 

 In the ten years ending with 18SS, 3,000,000 opossum 

 skins were shipped from Melbourne alone. As a 

 kangaroo can clear a fence eleven feet high, wire 

 fences, which are used against rabbits, are of no use. 



The dingo or native dog is another pest which is 

 found in all parts of the Australian main land. It is 

 allied to the wild dog of India, and may probably 

 have been introduced by the Malays some centuries 

 ago. Great destruction has been wrought amongst 

 the flocks of the settlers by these animals, and a price 

 is paid for every native dog destroyed. 



When rabbits were first introduced into Australia, 

 no one seems to have thought of the nuisance they 

 might eventually become, and of the large expenditure 

 which would be necessary to keep down their num- 

 bers. There are now few parts of the settled districts 

 which are not infested with them, and it is found that 

 if the exterminating efforts are relaxed, they soon 

 become as numerous as ever. After placing over 

 75,000 miles of telegraph wire across the length and 

 breadth of Australia for the benefit of commerce, the 

 different governments little contemplated having to 

 furnish hundreds of miles of wire netting to keep out 

 the rabbit plague, besides large sums for supervision 

 and destruction. The annual government outlay on 

 rabbit destruction in Victoria is about 20,000/., in 

 New South Wales 90,000/., and in South Australia 

 40,000/, But this simply represents what is spent on 

 Crown lands. In addition there is the large expen- 

 diture incurred by private individuals in attempting 

 to keep their land clear. A fence of wire netting has 

 been erected by the Victorian Government extending 

 a distance of 150 geographical miles, with the view of 

 keeping the rabbits and wild dogs on the border from 

 crossing, and the South Australian Government is 

 doing the same. The sum of 150,000/. was placed 

 on the estimates in Victoria last year, for the purchase 

 of wire netting to be handed to settlers on easy terms 

 of repayment ; it costs from 18/. to 20/. a mile. In 

 the last ten years the Victorian Government has 

 paid out 177,000/. for rabbit extermination. Some 

 persons have advocated the introduction of animals 

 hostile to rabbits, such as ferrets, weasels, and 

 ichneumons, but where this has been tried, it has 

 been found that the introduced animals have been so 

 destructive to poultry that the rabbits were the lesser 



