Untitled

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3778, 24 August 1883, Page 2

The Pall Mall Budget says: —"The plague of rabbits from which our Australian colonies are suffering has led Ncav South Wales to pass a iicav and more stringent Rabbit Act, tho proA.sions of Avhich certainly do not err on the side of leniency. Henceforth, any person who shall have in his "possession any live rabbit, or oven shall introduce into tho colony from any other colony or place any rabbit scalps, is iiable to forfeit and pay for each offence a sum not exceeding £100, or in default of payment b 3 liable to a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months. In South Australia districts haunted by rabbits may be proclaimed like seditious districts in Ireland under the Coercion Act, and most Legislatures at the antipodes have passed special laws to deal Avith tho prolific rodent. Hitherto the rabbit has not been a terror to our American colonies, but according to tho last mail from Canada his increase in the Dominion is occasioning some alarm. The Natural History Society of Toronto has brought the matter before the Commissioner of Agriculture, and demanded the extermination of tho rabbits Avhich a few years aii-o Avere imported to Toronto from England. To do this effectively, a set of questions has been sent out by tho Government, asking for information on tho subject, at the same time giving a description of the rabbit of tho country and the English rabbit, Avhich alone is to be treated as vermin and exterminated accordingly. By this means it is hoped it may bo possible to stop a further increase of tho plague, and avoid the necessity of adopting such draconio hiAVS as those Avhich aro enforced in Ncav Zealand and Ncav South Wales."