Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-04-21
THE RABBIT PEST.
EXTRAORDINARY FECUNDIfY OF
RABBITS ILLUSTRATED.
Will Australia's Experience of the
Rabbit Scourge be Ours p
Beagle VS.. Bunny.
Correspondence of the RrooRD-usmxl


Correspondence of the REcoRD-UYIoSi
With regard to the rabbit scourga, there
ire abundant signs of history repeating
Itself in the case of California, with all
the horrors that have attended ;he dissem-
nation of the plague in the Australian
colonies. Few people realize with any |,
degree of viyidness the enormous proper
tons which this evil promises to swell to
in few years vT.less timely measures sre
taken for limiting its ravaees. The extra
ordinary fecsrdity Of the rabbit lea6s TO
rapid multiplication in geometrical pro-
erosion, sc shat given favorable ca.cum-
stances, the sum of ske progeny of any
single pair-of rodents'in particular nun
Der of yesrs can he Ioretold with tolerable
accuracy. 1t is the 'problem Of the black
smiths PENNIES, familiar to our arithmc-
teal childhood. Ie got one cent for tthe
first mai. driven into the horseshoe, but
two cents for the-second, four cents for the
third, and so onGn proportion, till when
he'd driven the thirteenth nail there was
a natter of S47 coming to him The late
Charles Darwin computed that the multi
plying power Of these animals was SO great
that in the short space Of five years 1t
would be possible to breedfTom an origin
ally selected pair no less than l,5e0,000l
The vegetation of Australia is rapidly be-
ing ate off b.
THE PROGENY OF a SINGLE BUCK AND
Which were turned loose near the city of
Geelong twenty years ago. To what ex-
tent thes-abbits in that country menace
the pastoral interest may best be Judged
from the following extract from q report
on the subject made to the Parliament of
the colony Of New South Wakes On the
south bank of the river Murray deponent
in the report says, "there IS a station
named Kulkyne which has about twenty
miles frontage to th2t river. The holding
extends far back into arid, naturally
worthless, waterless country. On that
station by skillful management and by
command of capital, there came to be pas
tured about one hundred and ten thousand
sheep. When !, two or three years ago,
visited that station / found that the stock
depasturing it had shrunk to 1900
sheep, dying in paddock at the home
stead; one hundred and ten thousand
sheep to twelve hundred sheep. The rab-
bits had to account for the deficiency"
SITUATION HOPELESS IN AUSTRALIA.
The situation in Australia is gravely
summed up the same report as " hopeless, y
unless some plan be hit upon which will
minimize the rabbit hordes Compared with
the latter country, California offers twice
the inducements for the fertilization of
four-footed vermin The Pacific slope is a
stranger to the droughts, which, lasting
sometimes for successive years, impose an
effectual check on the too rapid multiple
cation of wild game If then in country
where an almost rainless climate PLAYS a
most important part in retarding the re-
production of species, if notwithstanding
the checks which withered vegetation and
dried up streams are to the survival of
only but an insignificant percentage of the
very fittest, if notwithstanding these draw
backs to the perpetGation of kind, the
rabbit in a few short years threatens to be
the only living animal on the continent
what must be anticipated in the case of
California, where
No DRAGs ON sEXUALsMULTIPLIcATIo
MAY nc Sdlu 10 eAlSLt Al the present
moment the hordes of Master Bunny are
more minatory to the agricultural pros
perity of this State than were the hordes
Of Attila to the civilization of Europe
thousand years ago. Forewarned, how
ever, is forearmed: and if these remarks Of
mine lead to a popular realization of the
evil we are threatened with, they will not
have been made in vain. Slowly, but for
years, the rabbit evil has been charging,
but there are few who have fully and
completely appreciated the real gravity OF
its consequences. Remedies which, in the
case of Australia, it is too late to apply
now, may in our own instance be resorted
to, with every prospect that they will ef.
feet the wished-for cure. But for the
latter to be accomplished, the application
of the former must be immediate and thor
ough, or else when the evil has attained to
rather larger growth, we shall be as i'm
potent to grapple with it as are the un-
happy Australians. Ii is a well-known
fact that the epidemics and scourges
which have worked the human race most
harm have always been singularly unno-
ticeable and stealthy in their approaches
An evil whose signs are not visible under
a MONDAY sun, people are apt to cherish a
contempt for, forgetting that it is Just this
class of evil which is the
MOST DEADLY IN ITS CONSEQUENCES.
This remark applies with singular force
to the rabbit scourge, whose ravages escape
notice because they are mostly perpetrated
under cover of darkness. Brer Rabbit has
sinister habit of getting his fine work in
of night, when the decent people whom
he is running are asleep Hardly a sign
of him is visible by day. Travellers By the
night mail coaches along the south bank
of the river Murray have described the
noise made by rabbits as they cleared off
from the advancing cleaning ooach-light
as Ike the patter of hail. In Australia
starvation has been a factor in thinning
out the rabbit legions which it can never
be here, the bare idea OF rabbit perish
ing from lack of nourishment in the teem-
ing grain-ields and vineyards of the Pacific
Slope being enough to provoke smile
from the utter impoSsihlity Of such a
thing happening. 1t viii be seen, there
fore, that the conditions which
FAVOR TEE sCULTIPLIcATIGS OF SPECIES
Being as they undoubtedly are in. our case
so much more plentiful than 4n Australia,
1t viii take a relatively shorter time for
The rabbit nuisance to swell % equal pro3or-
tons. In my appinion nothing can avert
from us repetition of those evils which
az the case OF Australia threatens TO rea-
der it an uninkabitable couusry. EXCEPT
the adoption of systematic efforts to oaii-
lark the march Of, Che approaching arn,r
of dodents. OF the wisdom OF Offering 2
bouaty for scalps, .Lffaall offer no eDinion
but poison and tbs innoculatioE with
hyoaophobic viraS aye, in my estimation.
teo slow and esimhzous to be Of much
pract;eal value. 9is1eover, as far IS re-
CARDS rabies, if once the disease was
actively propagated anlelg the denisel-s of
the warren the infection of some Of eur
domestic animals with thedistemper world
be aulenss the earliest consequences whieh
this experiment would give cise to. l 2n
no friend 70 the coyote, yet / am bound "a
say that this much-hunted animal has
done the 4szrner good service il repressins
the rabi. pest, for which he has got small
thanks, anai question whether the thin
ting out
OF THE tCARNIyoRoUs EoUR-roor
las not offered premium to the multi
plication Of the smaller quadsuped. which