404 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



I never saw any in Norway, and was told of experiments which 

 had been made to introduce them into the islands on the western 

 coast, but the climate killed them off. There seem to be none 

 in Russia, so far as I can learn. An old gentleman in Scotland 

 states that in his boyhood there were no Babbits to the north of 

 the Tay ; there are swarms at the present day ; indeed on Handa 

 there is hardly anything else, except sea-birds. Against this 

 I must set the testimony of a Frenchman who lived in England 

 in the year 1677, and who expressly states that there were Rabbits 

 in the Western Hebrides. His book was published anonymously, 

 and is called * Memoires d' Angleterre ' ; in the same work he 

 alludes to the ferocity of the Scotch Wolves. 



It is well known what an unwelcome introduction Rabbits 

 have proved in Australia and New Zealand. But I do not think 

 that anyone who has not witnessed with his own eyes the appalling 

 number of these pests can appreciate the terror with which settlers 

 regard them. In Victoria they threatened to eat out the first 

 settlers on the rich Western District, and the Messrs. Robertson, 

 of Colac, spent over £20,000 in exterminating them. They 

 imported Scotch rabbit-trappers and settled them in the now 

 flourishing township of Colac. These trappers dug out as many 

 burrows as they could, and blocked up others with masonry of 

 solid brickwork, and in the end the Rabbit had to give way to 

 the Scotchman. But it is needless to say that a number of 

 rabbit-trappers is necessarily employed upon every Australian 

 property situated in the neighbourhood of a Rabbit-infested 

 district, and this constitutes a heavy tax upon the proprietors. 

 None of the methods hitherto adopted against the Rabbits seem 

 to have met with much success.* Foxes were introduced into 

 the south of Victoria, but they seem to have come to the con- 

 clusion that it was easier to catch a Lamb than a Rabbit, and in 

 this frame of mind have continued to multiply. Ferrets were 

 turned out, but, in Victoria at least, were unable to stand the 

 cold in the winter, and this is natural, for the stock of Ferrets is 

 originally from the north of Africa, whence the ancient Spaniards 

 introduced them to cope with their Rabbit plague, just as the 

 Romans seem to have imported the Egyptian cat in order to cope 

 with that late but dreaded importation, the Rat. Weasels are 

 constantly being bought up and exported to Australia and New 



* See ■ The Zoologist,' 1888, p. 321 ; 1889, pp. 143, 323 ; 1892, p. 377.— Ed. 



