The Globe. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 838, 1 March 1877, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 1877.

A good deal has been said of the numberless benefits which must accrue to these colonies from the effects of acclimatisation; but people, nowadays, are apt, in their enthusiasm, to lose sight of what is shown by the reverse of the medal. Controversies, with reference to the baneful results, or otherwise, which have attended the introduction of sparrows, have been, from time to time, and in all parts of New Zealand, of frequent occurrence. Nothing very definite, however, seems to have been placed on record to prove on which side the balance of evidence should go. A wide-spread feeling has only obtained root, that we might quite as well have done without the assistance of these insectivorous birds, and nothing more. But now we find that a much more formidable enemy to cultivation, is making its appearance felt in various parts of the colony—in Otago especially—-the existence of which should certainly call for special legislation at an early date. We refer to the extraordinary increase of hares, found in some portions of the Middle Island to be an absolute curse, and one which bids fair to outstrip even the rabbit nuisance, which it has, of late, been found impossible to keep under. Not long ago, a case was heard in the Eesident Magistrate’s Court of Palmerston, in North Otago, wherein disclosures of a somewhat appalling nature were made, touching the ravages committed by the hares which infest that district. Mr D. Eich, of Bushy Park, a well-known gentleman, holding some very large property in the locality, was charged by the police with having contravened the acclimatisation act, by illegally hunting hares upon bis own land. Mr Eich, admitted the commission of the offence, but he argued in justification that under the circumstances, be thought he was fully warranted in what he had done, equally with the farmers of Southland in their endeavours to exterminate rabbits, or at least to check their increase. He stated on oath that hares were becoming so numerous in the Waikouiti district, that it was a | serious question, from the grass they consumed, and the injury they did. On the Bushy Park estate, hares would eat as much grass as would feed a flock of long wool sheep, and, it was not only the grass they consumed, but the injury they did to plantations. His plantation, last year, had been completely destroyed, and he thought he was perfectly justified in protecting his own property. “ In one of my paddocks alone,” said Mr. Eich, “ I feel sure there are over a thousand hares at the present moment.” The prosecuting constable, when appealed to, admitted having counted thirteen hares “ from Mr. Eich’s door-step ” while standing there for one instant delivering the summons. If there were so many there so close to the house, what numbers there must have been in the paddocks and land further away. The Magistrate fully admitted the hardship of the case, but said that, as the law stood, he was bound to convict, and he inflicted a nominal fine of ss. upon the defendant. And here we have an instance of a person witnessing, before his very eyes, the destruction of his property, and of the law, not only failing to afford him redress, hut preventing him from protecting that which not only gives him means of subsistence, but enables him to add to the common-wealth of the country. On some parts of Banks’ Peninsula, we believe at Pigeon Bay notably, hares are beginning to spread very fast, to the dismay of the farmers. | In the case of most kinds of preventative legislation, legal .means to check an evil are generally adopted too late; tho stable-door being but too: often locked after the steed has gone. 1 Pheasants have long been a curse to the settlers of the Waikato, where, in (several places, corn crops have been

entirely given up, owing to the impossibility experienced by the farmers to preserve them from the wholesale destruction to which pheasants subject them. The lamentable state of things brought about in many parts of this and other neighbouring colonies by the rabbit nuisance is pretty well known. All means to prevent these pests from spreading have as yet proved abortive. The whole coast country between the Waiau and the Clarence rivers is almost laid bare; and onwards, north and south, the scourge is moving. The report drawn up by the Commissioners, appointed to inquire into the rabbit nuisance in Otago, mentions that in Australia, on one property alone, the sum of £38,000 was spent in fruitless attempts to exterminate rabbits; whilst in this colony, in Southland, as many as 50,000 of these animals have been killed on one run in one year, “ without any apparent diminution in the numbers of those left,” The damage done by such a host can hardly be over-estimated. It reminds one of the plagues of Egypt, the locusts. Shortly before last session of the Assembly, promises were made by the Government with respect to giving elasticities to the working of the Acclimatisation laws, such as to enable too sudden an increase of hares and pheasants from becoming the serious nuisance it is proving, but nothing has been done. When action is taken in the matter, an incalculable amount of damage to property will have been done, and, to a certain extent, it will be too late.