SWAN SONG OF A FLEA
• Fleas may save Australia £40,000,000 a year, tie annual bill of damage presented by the rabbit. . Experiments in rabbit destruction have been going on for many years, and the latest attack by the Commonwealth’s Council for ..Scientific and Industrial Research was with a vims (myxamatosis cuniculi) discovered at Cambridge,. England. This virus infects the rabbit with a fatal influenza, but it is harmless to human beings and other animals. An area of 90 acres was fenced on Wardang Island, off the South , Australian coast, and infected rabbits were loosed among the local rabbit population. But the original inhabitants refused to associate with the newcomers, and the experiment failed. Now red rabbit'fleas are to be used as go-betweens, and they are being bred and observed in the council’s laboratories. If the observations, are favourable they will be infected and loosed to bite their way to glory.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19390826.2.23.3
Bibliographic details
Evening Star, Issue 23355, 26 August 1939, Page 7
Word Count
150SWAN SONG OF A FLEA Evening Star, Issue 23355, 26 August 1939, Page 7
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