384 PROCEEDINGS. 
the flora caused by the checking or modification of the native 
fauna, and the introduction of new flora. 
Prof. ANDERSON Stuart said the subject had been handled in 
a very interesting way, and there were a great many points that 
awakened interest. One of these was the prediction that the 
rabbit plague would bring its own cure. It happened that the 
other evening he (Prof. Stuart) was reading some ancient history, 
and he saw it stated that a rabbit plague was the means of 
practically depopulating the whole of the south of France and of 
Spain 100 B.c., and yet in the succeeding century no mention was 
made of any such plague, and there was no such plague there to- 
day; and it was pointed out that what happened there might 
happen here in Australia. Various means of getting rid of the 
rabbits had been proposed, but still there was no doubt whatever 
in his mind that the only way of getting rid of the plague was 
by the introduction of a suitable infectious rabbit-disease. “Fowl 
cholera” had not succeeded, still that by no means was to say that 
other microbe diseases would not succeed. He believed that a 
microbe would be found which would cope with the evil. The 
way to get that microbe was not by offering a prize. It would 
only be got by having competent men in sufficient numbers with 
ample opportunity and means to study the whole subject. To 
merely offer a prize, and to expect men to do work for a prize, 
was, he was certain, entirely futile. Both Pasteur and Koch, 
when in conversation with him during the past two winters, 
had spontaneously expressed themselves in exactly the same 
terms with regard to this question of a prize. 
Mr. Kynepon gave expression to his appreciation of the paper. 
Mr. Bensow referred to an aspect of the rabbit question which 
he thought had not been touched. In Europe rabbits bred only 
uuring the spring and the summer. In these colonies on account 
of the favourable climate the rodents bred all the year round. 
This constant breeding must, he thought, have a weakening effect 
upon their constitutions, and their vitality must be greatly lowered 
allowing diseases, which they could resist now, in time to come to 
