SOME EFFECTS OF THE RABBIT PEST. 413 
cellent pastoral country. Thus, rabbits, besides eating grass 
that would in their absence go to support sheep, have induced a 
state of things that highly favours the supplanting of grasses on 
a large scale by a useless and aggressive weed. 
In the higher parts of the interior of Otago (3000 feet and 
over) several common native plants are rapidly disappearing. 
Let us first take the case of Colenso’s spear-grass (Aciphylla co- 
lensot). ‘This spear-grass ranges as high as 5000 feet, or even 
higher. It is in many districts very abundant at low levels, such 
as 1000 feet above the sea, but appears to reach its greatest de- 
velopment at 3000 feet. On the Carrick Range it was very 
common a few years ago at all levels. But since rabbits became 
common it has been rapidly disappearing, especially at the 
higher levels. I have seen them nibbling at its leaves in the 
autumn season, and there can be no doubt that they are the sole 
agents leading to its destruction. It seems probable that rab- 
bits first took to eating spear-grass in winter, when the ground 
was covered with snow, as is the case on the Carrick Range for 
some months every year. They have during three months to 
burrow under the snow to get food, and if spear-grass was palat- 
able, a bush of it would be a god-send to a rabbit, for it would 
supply it with food for a considerable time and save the labour 
of burrowing more afield for suitable tufts of grass. Be this as 
it may, it is certain that rabbits do subsist largely on spear-grass 
during the winter in snow-covered tracts, and _ that their attacks 
on it are rapidly making it a rare plant in elevated situations 
where it was formerly abundant. The leaves of the plant are 
eaten by them in such a way that a circle of withered leaf-tops 
is alone left to mark the spot where a spear-grass bush formerly 
grew. It seems to me highly probable that their attacks will 
soon lead to the extermination of spear-grass in districts that 
are rabbit infested and where snow lies for some time during 
winter. The appearance of many spear-grass plants examined 
by me in autumn warrants the belief that it is eaten by them at 
other seasons besides winter. No doubt when tender grass is 
scarce, from drought or close cropping by sheep and rabbits, they 
fall back on spear-grass as a staple article of food. In lower 
districts spear-grass is seldom attacked, from which we may infer 
that rabbits prefer to feast on tender grasses. 
A second plant that has suffered from the attacks of rabbits 
even more than spear-grass is Lyall’s narrow-leaved cotton grass 
or native aster (Ce/mzsia lyalliz), This plant is greedily eaten 
by horses, and they kecp in excellent condition on its leaves. It 
was in former years very common on the Carrick Range, at an 
elevation of from 3000 to 4000 feet. The rabbits have now 
eaten it down so thoroughly that I could not see a single plant 
last year by the roadside, where hundreds were to be seen four 
or five years ago. To all appearance it has been exterminated 
in this locality. It has also become very rare on the Mount 
Pisa Range, where it was formerly very plentiful. 
Celmisia viscosa and Celmisia haastii are also attacked by 
