

EXTERMINATION OF THE RABBIT IN AUSTRALASIA. 385 



England! As long ago as 1881, too, it was officially stated in a 

 Government Report that during the years 1878, 1879, and 1880, no 

 less than the enormous total of 16,866,485 rabbit-skins, valued at 

 £147,195, were exported from the colony of New Zealand alone. 



It is now more than ten years since the colonists became 

 really and seriously alarmed at the increase of the rabbits. The 

 magnitude to which the evil has grown may be inferred from 

 the fact that, notwithstanding the expenditure of vast sums of 

 money, both by Government and by private persons, the number 

 of the rabbits and the area occupied by them have increased 

 enormously. Under these circumstances, it may well be imagined 

 that no economic question in which the Australasian Colonies 

 are interested is likely, for some time, to approach in importance 

 the Rabbit Question. 



It is not difficult to see how the extraordinary increase of 

 rabbits in Australia has come about. The fecundity of all rodents 

 is well known ; in addition, the Australian climate favours a never- 

 ending breeding season. From their natural enemies, too, — 

 foxes, dogs, stoats, weasels, and the like, — Australian rabbits are 

 practically exempt. It may almost be said that they are equally 

 exempt from persecution by man, notwithstanding the prodigious 

 exertions which have been made to destroy them ; for, in a country 

 where the population is not more than about one person to the 

 square mile, the most active and persistent slaughter that can be 

 carried on will, in its effects, fall far short of that accomplished by 

 the most casual shooting, for purposes of sport, in a country like 

 England, where the population averages 446 to the square mile. 



The magnitude of the scourge is now, however, so well known 

 in this country that it is unnecessary to say more. The Govern- 

 ment of New South Wales would hardly have offered the splendid 

 reward of ,£25,000 for an effective method of exterminating rabbits, 

 except in a case of the very direst necessity. 



The subject of the introduction of what may appropriately 

 be called "rabbit cholera" into Australasia gained additional 

 interest from M. Pasteur's proposals to exterminate the rabbits 

 there by communicating to them the disease known as " fowl- 

 cholera," Fowl-cholera is described, in Prof. Woodroffe Hill's 

 'Diseases of Poultry' (London, 1886, p. 27), as "an epidemic 

 diarrhoea, chiefly produced by an exalted temperature, defective 

 regime or hygiene in the poultry-yard, and the contaminating 



