The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-08-23
AUSTRALIA FIGHTS
 PLAGUE OF RABBITS
SPENDING BITLLToNs OF DOLLARS PUTTING DOWN BUNNY's
 INVASION.
Millions slaughtered to Export as Food, but Pest Continues
 to AEmIffpfx.

"Poison themW Put up another renee,
 These are some of the exclamations heard throughout Australia today, and increasing in energy every year For Bunny. innocent-Iooking bundle of fur, petted and admired almost the world over. is the greatest living curse to, the antipodean commonwealth. says a writer in The New York Evening Post
 Bunny has become one of the nat ional problems of Australia. Men, great and small. discuss him and means for his extinction. In Parliament. on the farm In cities and hamlets and in the solitudes of the "black blocks" Bunny is continually rallied against The season game laws do not apply to him The "vermin act" clubs. poison carts and powder and she'll arc for the longs- cared little fellow that is despoiling a nation.
 But "brer ribbit'' nibbles away. dodg- ing missiles and potions of death when he can and enriching the manufatu- rers of wire netting and fence posts. Almost may it be said of this continent which looks something like vast rabbit pen. that "AustraIia is a large body of land with a fence around it.. Bunny pioneers his way into every meadow and glade of green. and the man with the fence posts comes 'fol- lowing after"
 When Bunny first made his appear ance in AustNllia he found the land under the sway of the kangaroo, the pIatypus and other odd creatures of the antipodes. Left free to roam in his new home. Bunny. with the instincts cross of true pioneer, nibbled his way across the Dathless unknown and mar velously increased in numbers. From the day that he began to assert him k haaF. fhA Cpaataef AonOyanCa and destructive force on the continent. aside from the drougths. True. swarms of locusts sometimes darken vast tracts of vegetation. but neither they nor the cruel drougths are sufficient to overshadow the depredations of this animal.
 Forsmore than generation there has been continual warfare between the rabbit of Australia and the people. Aid ed by thefr Governments the people have spent fortunes to annihtlate the pest. Millions of rabbits have been clubbed and poisoned to death and windrows have euccumed to the deadly thirst of the drought and starvation, But stiil the conflict rages; still the public exchequer annually is drawn up. on to combat the unsuitable nibblers, which threaten to eat every bit of green in the country. Undoubtedly. if they had been left unmolested, rabbits would long ago have swarmed over every vegetable bearing foot Of the common wealth. as rats in the hold Of an old ship.
 So destructive did the ravages of the rabbits become in the fertile district that rabbit boards" were organized to deal with the evil. Imagine rabbit boards end rabbit inspectors In the United Statesl In Australia, are hum dreds of inspectors to see that the rao- bit regulations are not violated. Traps and poison carts litter the land. and thousands of miles of rabbtt-proof fences have been built. One such fence recently built between South Aaustralia and Western Australia, is said to have cost $4O0.Oo0.
 Butehered In Harvesters.
 To illustrate the rabbit scourge in his nesxorbhood a grim old scotch for mer of South Australia, who has titled the soil there for fifty years. said that 50 numerous are rabbits in his state that he has frequently seen grain har- vesters converted into veritable buch- erine machines as they overlook droVes of rabbits in the grain fields. Witnih recent years in that and other states eats have been enlisted in the strile' Pussy mas ktll6O C1LAO1Ao oA hut as toll for her assistance she has aaizad and devoured many chickens from the poultry yards of her farmer owners. On some farms there are scores of cats whose sole duty 1t is to kill rabbits.
 At inc meeting of the rabbit boards much Interesting testimony is adduced concerning the rabbit plague. At some of these sessions recently promi- nent farmer velTemently declared that tbe rabbits were increasing at an alar- ming rate, and that land which had all ways, been free of them was fast pe- ing overrun. In Australia raoolts travel in droves like sheep and cattle Tn such marches they appear 10 take little notice of human beings. dogs. or snvthing else except their own vor- acious appetites.
 Watching the rabbit hosts on the .voaIIabv.' as they say in Australia. 1t is not hard for one to fancy that the land itself Is on the march In their travels the rabbits follow close to the uzira fences built to keep them from green pastures, and there the grass Is converted into fine dust by millions of nadded feet. Through every opening tbe plunderrs rush pellmen Last summer a mob of them poured Into an aannr0teCted nelQ or lou dCIcS anu SbA AP ned if bare in a few nights. Where ra abbits are thickest and poison carts and traps are used thousands of anl-
 nals are Killed in a single day. Ravage Cemeteries.
 Not content to poster only the living. tha rabbits sometimes ravage ceme- terv. The cemetery at Cooma was so riddled by rabbits a few months ago that the gravestones toppled over. To prevent a similar raid at Moolong Cemetery wire netting was. used.
 Bunny" says an Australian. worries the backbone to death and then goes to look for him in the grave"
 Of the experiments made to re- lieve Australia of her rabbits the most noted at this time are those under the direction of Dr. Danysz. In his ex- periments the doctor uses a virus which has been demonstrated to be deadly to rabbits and harmless to other | animals. His principal manifestion was made on an island off the Austra- Han coast. and since then the use of the virus on the mainland has been urged by members of rabbit boards and "pastures protection" boards. In expressing himself on the rabbit curse a member of the pasture protection board advocated as a further flea | he i1u