"But the rabbits and parrots are our worst enemies, as you may have heard."
"Yes, I've heard so," replied Frank; "at least I've been told that the rabbits have been terribly destructive of grass, and ruined many thousand acres of pasturage."
"Rabbits were first introduced," said Mr. Abbott, "as a table luxury and to furnish hunting sport; and besides, it was thought they would be handsome ornaments on a place. But very soon it was found that they were a great pest; they increase very rapidly, and as the country was sparsely settled, the settlers were unable to keep them down. Men were hired to trap, shoot, or capture them in some way, and were paid at the rate of twopence for each rabbit-skin; but this plan was not effective, as it was not rapid enough, and after many experiments we took to poisoning the creatures by wholesale."
"By means of grain saturated with phosphorus; we prepare barrels with closely fitting lids, and fill them half full with oats; then we pour boiling water on the oats, and when they are thoroughly soaked and swollen we pour in a quantity of phosphorus, quickly replacing the cover, so that the poisonous fumes cannot escape. This grain scattered over the ground is death to the rabbits, but the disadvantages of the plan are that sheep are often killed by the poisoned grain.
"To give you an idea of the slaughter of rabbits in New Zealand, let me say that ten millions of rabbit-skins are exported every year, but the value of these skins is very little compared with the damage which the animals have caused. The latest official reports show that the nuisance is checked in some localities, but there are yet many millions of rabbits to be disposed of. In England and other countries foxes, wolves, weasels, and other noxious animals keep down the number of rabbits, but here, where they have no natural enemies, the country suffers terribly. Many a sheep-farmer has been ruined by the total destruction of his pasturage, and the loss to the colony may be reckoned by millions of dollars.
[Illustration: REDUCING THE RABBIT POPULATION.]
"Australia and Tasmania are equally afflicted by rabbits," the gentleman continued, "which were introduced into those countries from New Zealand for the same reasons that they were introduced here. Millions of pounds sterling would not compensate for their ravages, and the public and private expenditure for their destruction has already mounted into those figures. Dogs, ferrets, poison, trapping, drowning, and every other known means have been tried to reduce them, but without success. Occasionally the whole population turns out for a rabbit 'battue,' in which many thousands of the animals are killed. The owners of sheep and cattle runs have built hundreds of miles of rabbit-fences, and the colonial governments have done likewise; the fences stop the progress of the vermin for a time, but after a while they manage to burrow beneath them and come up on the other side, and so the fences are not effective to prevent the spread of the pest."