ON RABBITS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 973, 10 December 1880, Page 3

ON RABBITS.

(By & Melbourne correspondent—Garnet W alch.) Have you any rabbits in your neighborhood ? I do not mean the caged pets, fed on caresses and cabbage leaves but the bunnies that roam abroad at their own sweet will, individually such innocentlooking bundles of fur, but collectively so fearfully illustrative of (he power of unity. It has been my lot while travelling recently throughout the length and breadth of Victoria to meet on all sides with the most, painful accounts of the ravages committed by these pests Here it would be S"me line homestead abandoned to ruin and decay; there an entire run, many thousand acres in extent, without an atom of grass for the sheep, and all owing to the rabbits. It certainly is high time that the Government took the matter forcibly in hand. Ad interim, private individuals must do the best they can to stamp nut the plague. And when we remember that, natural historians ca'cnlato 1,274.840 as the probable progeny of a single pair of rabbits in four years, and when we come to picture these million and odd hundreds of thousands as all marrie 1, and with large families, we Itogin to get an idea of what awful jumps the rabbit census must make in country suited for burrowing purposes. 80 that recognising the rapid strides which the evil is making, the warfare against the rabbits should bo prompt and without qu irter. My thoughts have been led into this channel by noticing in the Exhibition a compact machine, termed a “rabbit annihilator,” manufactured I believe by Messrs M. and G. F. Crokei, of East Charlton, and used in conjunction with chemicals furnished by Mr Ogbnrn of the same town. I have had no opportunity of seeing the machine at work, but take for granted that it is thoroughly efficient, since I have the testimony of a rustic gentle:can who, standing at my elbow, murmured gruffly, but with a satisliod tone, “Ah, that's the little beggar to turn the bunnies’ toes up. I’ve seen 640 acres cleared with it in less than a month,” Questioning my rural

friend, I ascertained that' the mode of using the machine is simply to light its small charcoal’flre, charge it with chemicals, insert the nozzle into the opening of your rabbit burrow, work your bellows gently for a few minutes, aud, “ my word” —to again quote Rusticus —“ if there’s a thousand of ’em inside it’s a eaao with the crowd.” I wish certain political “bur rows” 1 wot of could be as easily cleared of their vermin. Eh 1 Ararat ? Since writing the above paragraph I have discovered that Messrs hi ‘l.can Bros, and Rigg are the Melbourne agents for what I hereby christen “ Crokor's Holocanstie Bunnicidal Blast." M‘L. B. and R speak very highly of the whole affair. I leave the rest to them and my readers.