THE ZOOLOGIST 



THIRD SERIES. 



Vol.XVL] NOVEMBER, 1892. [No. 191. 



ON THE EXTERMINATION OP THE RABBIT IN 

 AUSTRALASIA. 



By Miller Christy, F.L.S. 



Nearly ten years ago, I visited, for the first time, the 

 Canadian North-West, when I had my attention drawn to a 

 very curious phenomenon connected with the life-history of the 

 common Rabbit of that country, Lepus americanus. This animal 

 periodically undergoes most astonishing variations in its numbers. 

 For three or four years together, it may be quite a rare and 

 uncommon species, only met with now and then, even if careful 

 search be made for it. During the following three or four 

 years, however, it increases in number to such an extraordinary 

 extent as to become by far the most abundant mammal in the 

 country. Then, after the maximum of increase has been reached, 

 the Rabbits suddenly commence to. die off, and for a short time 

 continue to do so, literally by millions. Before many weeks are 

 over, their dead bodies strew the woods in all directions, while a 

 live Rabbit is scarcely to be met with anywhere. This remarkable 

 phenomenon is periodically observable over the greater part, if 

 not the whole, of the vast Canadian North-West. 



When my attention was first drawn to this curious fact in 

 Natural History, the idea at once occurred to me that it might 

 be turned to valuable account as a means of combating the 

 rabbit-pest in the Australasian Colonies; but it was not until 

 public interest was aroused by M. Pasteur's proposal to exter- 

 minate the rabbits there by fowl-cholera, that I considered the 



ZOOLOGIST.— NOVEMBER, 1892. 2 K 



