Rabbit Destruction.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 249, 30 December 1887, Page 3

Rabbit Destruction .

Tho fecundity of the Australian rabbit has (says the Argus) furnished a new problem for scientific men, and an interesting puzzle to the large class of humanity which takes pleasure in devising impracticable remedies for tin trouble of others. There has not been an evil, a disease, a calamity or a pestilence since the days of Job which the wise people from a distance could not explain and put right. But in this instance The Times, which has assumed the role of chief adviser, is palpably wide of tho mark. It suggests that before lending an oar to the alluring schemes of the various scientific experimenters, who promise to sweep the rabbits out of Australia as completely as the Pied Piper Swept them out of Hamolin, the colonies should first let loose a few weasels and stoats among them. One wonders—it is impossible to calculate how many weasels and stoats w.-uld be required j kill the rabbits in the inn.areds of square

I miles of infested country from the Murray Ito beyond tho Queensland Border. AH j that are in England, if they were safely ! lauded on our .-Lores, would be lost in a I single paddock, and if they were scattered over the count!y they would never be seen again. Perhaps, even, they might fraternise with the rabbits, and agree to look upon the lambs as their natural prey. Obviously The Times is ignorant that such hopeless experiments have been tried without the slightest shadow of success, and that even the mongooso which comes from India with an encovagingly mi'"dermis reputation, was an utter failure. It. may be conceivable in England that weasels and stoats can exterminate millions of rabbits over millions of acres, just as there may be people in Central Ecopo who, never having seen the sea, aro unable to comprehend why Mrs Partington failed to sweep back the Atlantic with her mop. This much may at least be said—that the latter endeavour is as sensible as the former.