RABBIT DESTRUCTION.

Oamaru Mail, Volume X, Issue 4098, 30 December 1887, Page 2

RABBIT DESTRUCTION.

The fecundity of tho Australian rabbit has (says the Argus) famished a new problem for scientific men, and an interesting puzzle tp that large olass of humanity which takes pleasure in devising impracticable remedies for the troubles of others. There has not been an evil, jk disease, a calamity, or a pestilenoe since the days of Job whloh the wise people from a distance could not explain and pat right. But in this instance the Times, whloh has assumed the rdle of ohlef adviser, Is palpably wide of the mark. It suggests that before lending an ear to the allaring sohemes of solentifio experimenters, who promise to sweep the rabbits out of Australia as completely as tho Pied Piper swept the rats out of Hamelin, the colonies should first let loose a few weasels and stoats among them. One wonders—it is impossible to calonlate—how many weasels and stoats wonld be required to kill the rabbits in the hundreds of square miles of infeoted oountry from the Murray to beyond the Queensland Border. All that are in England, if they were Bafely landed on our shores, would be lost in a single paddook, and If they were scattered over the oountry 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, tho Times is Ignorant that such hopeless experiments have been tried without the slightest shadow of success, and that even the mongoose, which came from India with an encouragingly murderous reputation, was an utter failure. It may be conceivable in England that weasels and Btoats can exterminate millions of rabbits over millions of acreß, just as there may bo people in Central Europe who, never having seen the Bea, are nnable to comprehend why Mrs Partington failed to sweep baok the Atlantic with her mop. This much may at least be said—that the latter endeavor is as sensible as the former.