Art. XVIII.—Objections to the Introduction of Beasts of Prey to destroy the Rabbit. By H. B. Martin. (Read before the Nelson Philosophical Society, 2nd June, 1884.) This paper deals specially with the weasel (Mustelidæ) and ichneumon (Viverridæ) families; but much that can be said against them will apply to any other beast of prey. I use the names of ichneumon and weasel to denote respectively the Indian ichneumon (mungoos) and the weasel, with all allied beasts of similar habits. 1. The introduction of these beasts of prey to destroy the rabbit is unnecessary; for poisoning with phosphorized corn succeeds well, even in spring and summer, when there is abundance of feed, while tuberculosis (which has recently broken out among the rabbits in Otago) will probably destroy them more thoroughly than any other means would. In various parts of the Auckland district the rabbits have become almost or quite extinct from natural causes;**Hansard No. 7, pp. 342–3, 1883. tuberculosis was also believed to be present in the Wairau Valley, where the rabbits were beginning to decrease before the present Act was in force. 2. Having no natural enemies here, and their furs being of very inferior quality in this climate, there would be no adequate check upon them, and they would therefore increase and spread as the rabbit has done. In Canada and other northern regions the weasels are killed in great numbers for their furs, and are also preyed on by larger beasts of prey, while in more settled districts their ravages among game and poultry cause them very generally to be destroyed, yet with all this they are in no danger of extinction, even where most persecuted, the intermission caused by changes of fashion sufficing in two or three years to restore them to their former numbers; and in England the stoat and weasel are so common, though freely destroyed, that it would seem impossible to exterminate them. The beasts of prey that have been, or are being introduced are the stoat, weasel, ferret, and Indian mungoos, all very prolific, as the following facts will show. The weasel has at least 2, perhaps 3, litters annually of 4 or 5 each, the stoat has 5 at a birth, and the polecat also 4 or 5; while the ferret (at home) has 2 litters in a year of 6 to 9 each. I am not able to give the rate of increase of the mungoos, but in Jamaica, where it was introduced to destroy the sugar rats, it has apparently increased much faster than in India, having in ten years completely overrun that island, even to the tops of the highest mountains (7,000 feet), and though it has certainly reduced the rats, it kills all other animals it can (as the weasel and stoat do also), so that all species of ground birds, fresh water and sea fowl, are rapidly