THISTLES AND RABBITS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3698, 22 May 1883, Page 4

THISTLES AND RABBITS.

(From the New York Times.) The inhabitants of Australia and the neighbourins islands have been very unfortunate in"tlio experiments mado by them in acclimatisation. These experiments have been unexpectedly and painfully .successful. Some years ago a Scotchman residing in Australia felt that what tris really needed in order to make the country in all respects admirable was a Scotch thistle. Accordingly, ho imported a thistle from Scotland and .set it out in hi.s garden. The ceremony was a most enjoyable ami hilarious one. All the Scotchmen'in the neighbourhood were present, and the feast of haggis and the How of whisky were unlimited. The assembled Scotchmen kissed the thistle, danced the Highland fling' around, it, and sang " Auld Lang Syne," "Scots wha hae," the "Banks and braes o bonnio Doon," and other national melodies; an eminent Scottish mathematician recited passages from the "Differential Calculus, and ii young Scotch lady read a chapter ot Dugald Stewart's philosophy. Altogether thc C occasion was a most delightful one, but before very long the wisdom of importing the Scotch thistle was called in question. The thistle grow and multiplied to an extent never dreamed of, and in a few years Australia was so thickly covered with Scotch thistles that the farmers and sheepraisers were in despair. The Scotchman who imported the original thistle has, with groat presence of mind, escaped from Australia in disguise ; but the thirst for his •blood which" is displayed by every Australian to whom the subject of thistles is mentioned in something that really terrifies the peaceful and law-abiding stranger. Even a more signal and disheartening success lias attended the introduction of rabbit* into the Colony of New Zealand. "Why rabbits were over brought to a Colony that had the good fortune to bo destitute of them, no one knows; but the fact remains that in an evil hour some misguided New Zealaudor imported a pair of rabbits and turned them loose. The rabbits were delighted with the climate, soil, and productions of Now Zealand, and they multiplied with enthusiasm. The result is Unit at the present time New Zealand is crammed with rabbits. The residents of country houses have to shovel paths through the rabbits from their front doors to the road, and, of course, these paths fill up again almost immediately, thus entailing almost endless labour, 'if a man Avishcs to have a garden he must first enclose a piece of ground with il wall 10ft. high and with a foundation 20ft, deep, and he then must hire a force of men to .shovel the rabbits into closed waggons nnd cart them out of the enclosed space before lie can begin to till the ground, if a front door is left open for five minutes tho house swarms with rabbits, and although the cattle in the Holds crush rabbits by the dozen whenever they move, they can rarely find a bit of grass underneath tho upper Klraturn of rabbits upon which they can

feed. All sorts of remedies have been proposed with a view to extirpating or at least lessening the number of rabbits. Shooting, trapping, and poisoning seem to produce no effect; or rather, when one rabbit is shot or trapped two others instantly appear to take his place, and the more poison is fed to the rabbits the fattcv and more prosperous they seem to be. In these circumstances Homo ingenious New Zcalander has had tho happy thought of importing mongooses or should Aye say numgeeses'r —from India, with the expectation that the latter boasts will extirpate the former. Some hundreds of mongooses are now on their way from India to New Zealand, and tho inhabitants of thfit rabbit-ridden Colony arc,cherishinggreat hopes as to the result, Why the mongooses shouldbe relied upon as an exterminator of rabbits docs not appear. In his native India the mongoose lias nothing to do with rabbits, but is exclusively in the snake business. His whole time is taken up in killing snakes, but in spite of his devotion to business the snakes still constitute a large majority of the inhabitants of India. If tho mongoose is brought to New Zealand, and he can be convinced that rabbits are snakes, he will undoubtedly kill them to some extent, but the difficulty Avill be to convince him against the evidence of his senses. He is a docile and credulous beast, as shoAvn by the fact that the Indian jugglers can induce him to allow himself to bo bitten by cobras, but there must bo a limit to his credulity ; and unless tho Ncav Zealandcrs can paint their rabbits tho color of the cobra, and induce them to coil themselves after the manner of snakes, the probability is that the mongoose will refuse to view them in any serpentine light. If tho mongoose does not kill the rabbits, and if he multiplies as rapidly as the rabbit has multiplied, lie Avill soon become as great ii nuisance as his predecessor. In that case the New Zealandcrs will have to import Home now animal in the hope that lie Avill prey upon the mongo.se. The jackal might possibly meet their vieAA r .s, or thcA r might conic to some arrangement with the hyena. They Avill probably, however, lose all heart Avhcn they find that in importingthe mongoose they hiivo simply brought a .second quadrupedal pestilence upon themkclvps, and will abandon New Zealand in despair. It is rather odd that they havenot thought of the one remedy for their all provading rabbits. What they ought to do is to import a foAV regiments of white ants from Africa. These able insects can be thoroughly entrusted. They -will eat up every living thing in the country, including the colonists themselves, if the latter do not .secure their .safety by temporary flight. After having destroyed all the vegetable and animal life in Ncav Zealand the ants Avill themselves perish of starvation. The colonists can then return and stock Now Zealand with plants and animals of unexceptionable character, among whom they can spend their lives in peace and quietness. White ants arc the only cv.ro for excessive rubbits and mongooses, and the sooner the New Zealandcrs appreciate the fact the better.