The Otago Witness, DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, AUGUST 11.

Otago Witness, Issue 1341, 11 August 1877, Page 13

The Otago Witness, DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, AUGUST 11.

It is with very great satisfaction that we notice that the New Zealand Government has not been inattentive during the recess to the rabbit question. Among the first papers placed on the table at the opening of Parliament is one containing a series of letters passed between the Agent-General, Mr Newton, and Mr Babtlett,' relating to the question of the destruction of rabbits in the Oolony.i As this Parliamentary paper is not likely to fall into the hands of the greater number of our readers, it may be as well to give an exact desorip-

tion of the "rabbit tip" invented by Mr Bartlett of Thetford, who is somewhat ludicrously described in the correspondence as the "occupier" of one of the largest rabbit warrens in England. " Pieces of ground, perhaps 30 or 40 yards in diameter, are enclosed by a common warren bank of turf, and capped in the usual way with furze. Inside each of these enclosures, and immediately adjoining the bank, a pit, some sft. or 7ft. deep, is dug, and covered (with the exception of a manhole, haying a boarded lid) with brushwood, laid on a few poles put at the point of contact between the pit and the enclosing bank ; a hole (like an ordinary rabbit's hole) is made through the latter. For about half the length of this hole, its bottom is formed by the natural surface of the ground, but about the remaining half has the soil scooped away sufficiently to allow of a tip-board working on a pin or pivot to be introduced ; the inner end of this tip board hangs over the pit, and the top and sides of the hole are here also boarded. The tip board is slightly weighted at its outer end, to restore it to its original position of balance, and its inner end rests upon a wooden button attached to the roof of the pit ; but when the * tip ' is wanted for use, the button is turned, and the tip board swings freely. About half way between the pivob on which it turns and the inner end, a bit of wood is fixed vertically, to get over which the rabbit is forced to jump, and thus ensures the successful action of the apparatus, when shut ; for then the animal alighting plump upon the end of the tip board is at once toppled into the pit below. It remains to be said that the rabbits are induced to feed within the iuclosure, by turnips or the like being strewn at first near the entrance hole and also inside. When it 13 found that they freely avail themselves of the opportunities, the button is turned, and every rabbit that enters, instead of passing on to feed as he has been accustomed to do, finds himself sent headlong intp the pit, whence he and hia fellows may be taken next morning by the warrener, who obtains access to the pit through the There is a further advantage in this method, in that "it cause 3no alarm to the survivors, who are, of course, in utter ignorance of the fate of their comrades." This is Mr Bartlett's plan for the destruction of rabbits, in which he does not seem to have much faith indeed, in so far as JSTew Zealand is concerned, " because of the „ many little things pertaining to it, only those who have, by observation and experience, arrived at the knowledge, can tell how cunning and how sensitive a rabbit is." In all those districts most thickly populated by rabbits, we believe, that the "tips" would answer well. Failing this, however, we have another, an alternative plan, given to us, which seems to us, at least, open to the objection of being ill suited to a country where the rabbits are so widely distributed as they are in Southland. Mr Bartlett says, with regard to this— " Were it my case in New Zealand, I should buy 10 dozen good bow spring traps — procure a few hundred yards' of good 2ft. wire netting ; have a double furrow ploughed round against the living location of the rabbits ; place the wire netting on the top of the double furrow embedding the netting some two or three inches in the furrow; and if the rabbits be very numerous, cut lots' of gaps in the furrow below the wire netting, and trap at these gaps." Such a method as this would, in fact, be impossibly expensive when the rabbit was desolating- many square miles- of country, however effective it might be, where the pest was confined to a small area. We notice the strong terms in which all the contributors to this bundle of tetters object to Mr Campbell's proposal to introduce weasels, &c, as a check to the rabbit. These are spoken of continually as being far worse, tban the disease, and as being likely to be very destructive, not alone to our acclimatised birds, &c, but even more so to- the native birds. " Their importance to the farmers, if not as yet fully appreciated, is sure to be be so when, in consequence of their extinction, a plague of insects, far worse than that of rabbits, will assuredly be felt." The whole paper is curiously interesting, and is in marked contrast to the ordinary run of . Parliamentary documents in this respect.

Pastoral settlement upon the West Coast! appears to be" gradually extending. Stock is occasionally sent to the bay 3 south of Hokitika, and by announcement which we publish to-day, it will be seen that Governmant is about to submit the depasturing right on 10,000 acres at Jaokson'a Bay ,to publio competition.